


Scandals, Public and Private

by D12fan



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, M/M, May/December Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2020-10-27 10:40:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 154,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20759024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D12fan/pseuds/D12fan
Summary: It was 2016, the country elected Trump and I fell in love with my future father-in-law – both of us felt dizzy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Never know what to say here. The truth is the other story I was writing needs some more tweaking, and in the meantime this other thing materialized in my mind. I think it’ll be short; unfortunately I can’t promise it’ll be interesting to anyone except me; but then, you never know.
> 
> Disclaimer is standard: the characters are fictional and have nothing to do with the real people whose names were borrowed to write this story. No offence was meant.

_And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson_

_-Simon & Garfunkel, "Mrs. Robinson"_

There are two things I know about love – when it starts and when it ends. The rest, the in-between is lost in the minutiae. But these two moments, them you remember, them you recognize.

I know exactly when I fell in love with Caroline Hammer, for example. It was Thursday, July 21, 2016, New York. We were watching a DVD of “The Sopranos,” my head in her lap; Tony was talking about remembering the little moments; Caro’s perfume, mixed with beer and pepperoni, made my nose twitch; setting sun from the window and sounds of rain from the TV; I turned and looked up and she glanced down at me, her warm brown eyes, chocolate and gold, were smiling; and right there, right then, I thought, holy shit, I’m in love with this girl. I’m truly in love with this girl. We’d been dating for almost three months by that time, but this was the second I knew.

As I’d know the moment it ended, but that came much later.

Ok, let’s start from the beginning. My beginning is not in New York, I’m from Michigan originally, from a little town called Otter’s Corner, population 478 and counting (unfortunately backwards). There is one shopping mall, three schools, one hospital, one library and a bunch of otters. Our first and only cinema theater came to us together with Bill Clinton, for whom we voted twice and who didn’t disappoint. Or at least, he didn’t disappoint us as much as we expected him to, which is a mark of great leader, as my dad likes to say. Yeah, he fucked us with NAFTA, but at least the evening news was entertaining most of the time. So, a great leader.

We voted for Gore, too. Gore disappointed us greatly, but not as much as Bush, to tell the truth. He could have been a great leader, Gore could, he ticked all the boxes, but that was not to be. Ah, well…

About the moments that define us, well, I had my first when I was seven. How it happened, I can’t be sure, but I ended up watching “All the President’s Men” on TV, and I knew. No, I couldn’t tell you what the movie was about, I myself didn’t have the slightest idea, and I didn’t decide to be a journalist right then and there either. Rather, I knew that I wanted to be Robert Redford. As soon as I realized that, I started to pay more attention to the plot, which was a waste of time - you try to explain Watergate to a kid! - and Robert didn’t really help, as much as he tried. Still, I understood that he was a guy to be, and to become like him you had to know how to type, wear beige sportcoats and work for something called _The Washington Post_. That was enough for me - I was seven, my fate was sealed.

Unfortunately, life didn’t oblige right away. First of all, even at that age I looked more like Dustin – Hoffman, that is – than my ideal. Blue-eyed and blond I was not, and no matter how much I willed it, the time pushed me closer and closer to Dustin, in more ways than I knew then. Second, I lived in Otter’s Corner, and _Washington Post_ – frustratingly – was in Washington. And third, I didn’t know what journalism really meant besides typing. Granted, many people are still confused, even some members of the profession, but this mystery weighed on me for some time. Regardless, I was determined and talked my mom into buying me a second-hand Remington.

My mom is great like that, she’s all into spoiling her only child. And Dad is all about spoiling Mom, so he didn’t protest much, even though I suspect he was a bit puzzled why a future sheriff would spend his days retyping articles about logging and fishing. You see, my dad is a local sheriff, and he of course thought that I’d be too. I can only imagine his face if I came to him and told him that I wanted to be Robert Redford (or at least Dustin, if my luck didn’t change). He’d probably say that no movie star had ever come from Otter’s Corner in general and our family, in particular; and he’d be right.

It’s true, the Chalamets hadn’t produced anyone nationally significant up until that moment. My Huguenot ancestors fled Canada sometime in the 18th century, but didn’t get far, as you can see; which I think was smart – keep your options open and all that. Plus, cheap drugs are just a border away; good, too. They brought with them a lot of religious fervor, French accent and a bizarre name, and only the last one survived to the 21st century; the rest we lost to Midwestern vowels and sexual revolution.

So, I’m a Chalamet, one of the last representatives of this illustrious line, and until I turned sixteen, my first name was Timothy. But then I turned sixteen… Your highest ambition at that age is to be interesting, unfortunately. So my high-school friends crashed their cars, tattooed themselves with a sewing needle and Bob Warden from across the street even blew up his grandmother’s henhouse. No fowls suffered as a result, on account that it’d stood empty for years, but FBI was called – homemade explosives, domestic terrorism. All very interesting. CNN mentioned us for the first and last time. I admired Bob, but I was bad at chemistry, so I couldn’t replicate his achievement.

I had to use what was available, and not much was, admittedly. It’s difficult to stand out when the last interesting thing that happened in your family, happened in the 18th century. What I had, though, was Robert Redford and somewhat remarkable origins. I didn’t go as far as to become a Huguenot, but I did decide that Timothy was too pedestrian even by Otter’s standards and Timothée sounded better. Secretly, I hoped it would impress people in New York, where I knew by that time I was heading, and it did raise some eyebrows later on, but other than that, it was another rush 16-year-old decision that I was too proud to back off from when my father questioned its rationale.

My determination to work for _Washington Post_ and become a journalist (in that order) didn’t weaken either. The only thing that changed was the place – Washington didn’t cut it, I wanted New York. Luckily, _Post_ had an office in New York, too, so that was fine. I graduated from MIT and was ready to go.

Ok, postpone the aahing, not _that _MIT: MIT as in Michigan Institute of Telecommunications, which was considerate enough to lose its license two months _after_ I got my diploma.

Great things awaited me, I knew it. My mom knew it. My dad wasn’t so sure, but after the 2000 election you can’t blame him for being cautious. I had three grand saved after working in a small newspaper and a local diner, and my parents supplied another two, and so, after a tearful goodbye, duffel bag in hand and Robert on my mind, I boarded a bus to New York and left my dear Otter’s Corner behind. Of course, I love this place, I love it deeply, just not enough to live there, you know?

It was June 2015, I was twenty-three, New York was the world’s seventh most expensive city to live in and print media was dying. I didn’t care. “Give me your tired, your poor…” Well, here I am, lady, and nice hat, by the way.

Airbnb supplied the cheapest apartment possible and my stash, which I thought was considerable, but soon found out otherwise, promised to keep me in Big Apple until September. After that it was back to my otters or jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. So I researched how to get to the bridge and calmed down.

Next I verified the _Washington Post_ address and went shopping. Don’t forget, I had a plan. I had a plan since I was seven. Reality corrected it in places, but the essence was intact. We, lapsed Huguenots, don’t give up so easily.

I’m a strong believer in lost causes, they are worth fighting for. Unless it’s Civil War and Lincoln tells you otherwise, but if it’s not, then feel free, fight. Control yourself, though, you need to be realistic about these things too, because there comes a time when a lost cause is, you know, lost. Read history, there are ways to suffer defeat gracefully, and so I did - I looked at myself in the mirror again and finally admitted that no, I was no Robert, it was all Dustin staring back at me.

Fine, I won’t be a Woodward, so what? I’ll be a Bernstein. Not a part of original plan, but who knows - he dated Elizabeth Taylor, after all, I wouldn’t call it a fate worse than death. (In the 80s, at least.)

So, ok, I was Dustin, and Dustin was Bernstein, and it wasn’t so bad. This way I didn’t even have to dye my hair, wear lenses or do a nose job – I had it all already: Dustin’s haircut, Dustin’s beak, Dustin’s dark eyes and Bernstein’s talent, if you ask me. What I didn’t have was beige chinos and employability at the current market, but chinos I could obtain. So I did.

Next day I went to the Post, and if they gave away Pulitzers for stylish dishevelment and false nonchalance, I’d have gotten one that very day, no question. Unfortunately, they don’t, and what’s more important, they don’t even hire based on that.

“I want to work for the Washington Post,” I told the lady in the human resources.

“Why?”

“I want to write,” I said. _And a Pulitzer. _

She advised me to start a blog, took the articles I did for my local paper and didn’t much hide the fact that no one would ever read them.

“I can write about Flint, I know the locals,” I lied. “I saw Michael Moore once.” Not true, unless you count a TV screen.

“We’ll call you,” she promised half-heartedly.

I went straight to the Brooklyn Bridge. I am not a wavering person.

I had options, of course. McDonald’s, for example. Walking dogs, collecting garbage… _New York Times_, if the worse came to worst. But there are 545 McDonald’s in Michigan, and we have enough dogs and garbage of our own, so I didn’t need New York for that. And NYT – well, they didn’t help Robert much in “Three Days of the Condor,” so I didn’t trust them.

But I still had more than four grand and didn’t really want to die, so I decided to stick to my guns. Tomorrow is another day, tomorrow I’ll go back, that’s what I decided.

And I did. Next day I went back and simply sat in the lobby, until the security escorted me out. After two weeks I wore them down and they stopped paying attention to me. Slowly but surely, I won, I had a place in the Washington Post lobby, right by the artificial ficus that they seem to never dust.

If you think that it’s easy to sit in the lobby all day long, try it. It’s more exhausting than working, actually. To kill the time I studied the people passing by and pretty soon could identify most of the editors. After finding out that, I started greeting them, as one professional to another. First reactions were mixed – from annoyance to puzzlement. Next came indifference and July - I’d been sitting there for five weeks and nothing happened. The bridge beckoned…

“Good morning,” I said to the sports editor and smiled politely.

No reaction. I sighed and went back to my Dostoyevsky. I bought “Crime and Punishment” a week ago, and though it didn’t help that 90 percent of the book was punishment – too close to home – still, you wouldn’t get far with Palahniuk these days, so I read it faithfully.

“I don’t have time, young man,” I heard and looked up.

Sports editor’s head was poking from the open elevator and was turned in my general direction.

I looked around. I didn’t dare to believe… Then I did. He was looking at me. He meant _me_.

“Print media is dying, have you heard?” he asked me, when we got to his office on the 14th floor.

“I love sinking ships,” I said. “Hire me, and I’ll be that last fiddler on your Titanic.”

He shuffled some papers, looked at me again. “We had a bet, you know? How much time you’d stick there. I said a month. I lost.”

“You did,” I nodded.

“You remind me of someone,” he frowned, and I held my breath. “God knows who…” he shook his head.

Well, I guess Dustin doesn’t look like he did in the 70s either. Understandable.

“What do you know about cricket?” he asked suddenly.

I knew nothing, so I assured him that I could write about it. We both knew I was full of shit, but he lost a bet, so he was curious.

I was shown to an empty desk and told to write about cricket. I had my laptop with me and they had Wi-Fi, so by the end of the day I wrote him 4k worth of cricket news. He skimmed through it and grunted. No encouragement, promises or thank yous followed. What followed was cross-country skiing, baton twirling, fencing, Muay Thai and badminton, for some reason. When he found out about my Canadian roots, he ordered a piece on curling, about which I knew as much as I did about 18th-century Huguenots, if I’m honest, but I wrote about it too.

Long story short, in September, 300-bucks-and-it’s-Otter’s-Corner-again, they hired me. One of the girls from the Lifestyle section went on maternity leave and so I was sent there.

“Timothée?” an ash blonde named Clarissa frowned. “Isn’t it a girl’s name?”

“It only sounds like one,” I told her.

“Well, that’s good. Because Audrey mostly wrote about make-up…”

This time I got the desk with a computer, printer and two empty paper trays and for the next six months wrote about cellulitis, anti-aging creams, lipstick, Kardashians, dandruff and Gwyneth Paltrow.

I like Gwyneth, she’s a trooper and her business savvy is simply disarming. Also, if you heard about that vagina egg, chances are I was your source. (Goop went as far as offering me one for testing, but I politely declined. It made me consider going back to “Timothy,” though, but it didn’t last. I’m not a wavering person.)

All this was no Watergate stuff, true, but then I didn’t think another Watergate would happen in my lifetime, so I wasn’t really worried. It was January 2016, Trump was still a joke, no one was worried.

In reality, I’d probably still be sitting at that desk, writing about concealers, if in May of that same year Obama didn’t decide to visit Flint and, as a consequence, gift us with one of the most embarrassing moments in the history of political PR.

Why did he drink that water, I’ll never know. I’m sure he meant well. I love Obama, my town loves him too, we voted for him twice and he didn’t disappoint, according to my dad’s standards; so I don’t blame him, I don’t know who fucked up there. It seemed big at the time, but not catastrophic. It was only May, everyone I knew thought that November was in the bag.

Now I’m looking back at that moment and think that yes, it was defining – Obama raising that glass and drinking, promising something he should never have promised. But then it was considered simply very unfortunate, an accident, a fuck-up.

Sometimes you spot them, those defining moments, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you just don’t…

Anyway, as I was one of the three proud Michiganders in the office and often talked about my desire to write for Politics section, unexpectedly I was sent to Flint together with Phil and Tom, the guys covering the election cycle. I don’t know what they saw and heard, but what I saw was pretty scary, and I don’t mean the health crisis only.

Someone would pay for that glass of water, I thought. Michiganders are lovely and loyal people, but we don’t forget betrayals. There will be a reckoning.

None of that was included in the final article, of course. I got two good quotes from talking to the locals, and one of them was used, but my name didn’t grace the byline, which I thought was fair, so I wasn’t bitter.

More importantly Stanley, our de facto political editor, told me that he’d keep me in mind if something else came up, namely something no one else cared about, but just important enough to be worthy of a paragraph on page 23. Something like that. I was over the moon.

Discreetly and unobtrusively, but over the moon.

And I wasn’t wrong, because just two weeks later, he stopped by my desk and asked if I wanted to write about a couple of non-profits that provided legal help to immigrants seeking to gain citizenship. It would be a small piece, mainly about the people who worked there and their mood in the current political climate. It wasn’t considered a priority because those firms were local and small, while the real big players were mostly in Texas, Arizona and California. Plus, I would be paid only half of what the guys in Business and Politics made, but it was another chance to prove myself, so I agreed.

I don’t know what I feel, looking back at it now. I was about to live another defining moment of my life, though I didn’t know it then. I thought my career was about to change and for the better, I dreamed about buying a new laptop and maybe a bike, I called my mom and hesitantly shared my news with her, I watched “All the President’s Men” again and was content that my textured dark brown necktie looked exactly like Dustin’s, but I never thought I’d go to Chinatown and meet my future girlfriend.

A small thing, but I didn’t expect it.

Caroline Hammer was working as a paralegal assistant in “Unity for Prosperity.” I don’t remember the first time I saw her, there were no bells, no time-stopped moment. My interview wasn’t with her and even if I saw her when I first came in, it didn’t register.

It was on my way out, when I stopped in the middle of their shabby office and was furiously writing in my notepad, that she said, “You can sit here,” and pointed to the chair by her desk.

I automatically said “thank you” and sat. The piece I had to prepare was supposed to be 900 words max, but I had already written half of it, and it was just my first interview, so I don’t know how I looked at the moment, but I suppose I looked stressed enough to be interesting, because she asked me what was wrong.

Then I looked at her.

As much as I have a type, she’s probably it. Brown hair, warm brown eyes, straight classic nose, light tan, but most importantly hands. I have a thing about hands. I notice them. I can fall in love with hands.

Caroline Hammer had one of the most beautiful fingers I ever saw.

“You look like Carl Bernstein from ‘All the President’s Men,’” she smiled cheekily.

“You like it?” I stopped gaping at her hands. “The movie, I mean.”

“Not really,” she snorted. “But my father does.”

I wasn’t in love yet, but I was going to be.


	2. Chapter 2

Ok, so now I had a job, an apartment (without AC), future in political reporting and a girlfriend. I never expected any of that, so I was thrilled.

Caro and I hit it off right away, because there are no other possible scenarios here. I don’t believe those stories: oh, we were friends for fifteen years and then - BAM! No, that BAM! happened right away, it just took you two turtles fifteen years to do something about it.

The simple truth is that there are only three types of people in this world: “maybe,” “never,” and “already” people. That’s it. “Maybe” as in “yeah, maybe I’ll have sex with this person, I can imagine it.” “Never” – “I’d never have sex with him/her/them, not without sizeable monetary reimbursement.” And “already” is self-explanatory, I guess.

Good news is that you need no more than ten minutes in close proximity to an individual to categorize him/her once and for all. Bad news is that I can’t imagine what you can do, short of reincarnation, to go from a “never” to a “maybe.” East is East, and West is West – if you’re a “never” in her eyes, you’ll die a “never.” Social and sexual mobility have different rules: with the first, movement is at least promised; with sex – abandon hope: ten minutes and you’re out; or in, if you used them well.

Another truth is that, when a girl is into you, you know. Trust me, you know. All that hogwash about men missing non-verbal clues, don’t fall for it. Ask any man, he’ll tell you – he knows exactly if there is a chance to score here or not. I give a pass to guys on autistic spectrum – and I’m not being flippant here – yes, they are in trouble, and they can honestly say that they don’t get hints. All the rest, give me a break.

If the girl is into you, she smiles differently, she laughs differently, she looks at you differently, and when you ask her out she says yes. No rocket science here.

My first conversation with Caro, I knew. I just knew that even if she wasn’t sure, she was considering it. While I was bullshitting her about developing my sources on the ground and how I’d want her to be one of them, and if she’d be so kind as to give me her number, and look, my list of contacts, the numbers I already have, all this time Caro was sitting there and considering if she’d say yes when I finally got to my point and invited her for a cup of coffee, or something. And I knew she was considering it, simply because she let me talk all that time. If she wasn’t intrigued in the slightest, she’d be curt and polite, and no amount of Dustin in me could help.

Watch for it. Politeness. Politeness is distance. The more polite the woman is with you, the further away from her she wants you to be.

But Caro said yes. Yes, she’d be my source on the ground (her phone number followed), and yes, she was free Thursday evening.

“And yes, I like coffee,” her eyes twinkled, “or something.”

I dated before. I had a high-school sweetheart who my mom seriously thought I’d marry, because she and Dad were high-school sweethearts, so the recipe was tried and true. Well, I didn’t marry that girl, I went to MIT, had to commute from my town every day and our romance fell apart soon after. Then there was a girl at MIT, and another one after her. First one didn’t have any hobby besides me and ended up driving me crazy, and the second simply didn’t want to leave Michigan. We managed to separate peacefully both times; though, I’m pretty sure neither of them misses me, which is… Well, I don’t miss them either, to tell the truth.

In New York I had three one-night stands, which is three more that I would’ve had if I stayed in Otter’s. I mean, I was writing about cellulitis and Gwyneth, so no matter how focused I was on my job, I still ran into chicks. Gwyneth gives press-conferences, did you know? Few guys attend, but they should. I met two of those girls because of Gwyneth - she should consider branching outwards and into matchmaking.

Anyway, Caro.

I brought flowers. Nothing ostentatious, just a small bouquet of violets. I mention it because she was surprised, which surprised me in turn. I didn’t even think twice about it, it was just something you do: you give the woman flowers. My dad buys a bouquet three times a year: Mom’s birthday, New Year’s and July 1, because it’s National Postal Worker Day and Mom is one. First date is not a national holiday, but… I mean, it’s just something that you do.

Still, Caro was surprised. She wasn’t shocked, of course, and she didn’t make a big deal out of it, but she was surprised. I noticed.

Then came something less surprising and more frustrating.

“So, Michigan,” she bit her lip. “Like Jack Dawson.”

Oh, fuck me…

Look, my state gave birth to Henry Ford, Francis Ford Coppola, Thomas Edison and Madonna. I understand that you might not give a damn about Madonna – and it’s probably mutual – but about Coppola you must have heard. But no… No, I met at least three people in New York who were convinced that the most important guy who ever lived in Michigan was someone who never lived at all, and – this is even more frustrating – he wasn’t even from Michigan.

Jack Dawson – yeah, from _Titanic_ \- his angelic eyes and Leo’s haircut, all that was from Wisconsin; and he presumably tried to get back there when love and ice got in the way.

And Michigan and Wisconsin… It’s like Iran and Iraq – close, but different. The fact that so many people still can’t separate the two – Hillary Clinton among them – is probably the reason why world politics is such a mess these days.

Back to my date.

So, yes, we started with Jack and Wisconsin, discussed Trump for about ten minutes (because you can’t even schmooze a girl nowadays without mentioning him, apparently), then she talked about her work, then I talked about mine, then she asked me who I was going to vote for and when I said “Hillary,” she let me hold her hand. That’s how East Coast liberals mate, in a nutshell.

Unlike dear Jack – God rest his imaginary soul – I had smooth sailing for a time. So I gently alluded to the fact that I’d like to schmooze her some more and what was her favorite place to eat.

She thought for a couple of seconds and then said something that sounded like “sunny potty,” but I suspected had nothing to do with public sanitation. Still I didn’t know New York that well then and thought, “Here is another cricket. Who cares that you know nothing about it? Write _something._”

“Madison and East 84th?” I smiled knowingly.

No, she said, Lisbon, and I said… Well, I didn’t say anything for a moment, because I was thinking, and what I was thinking was, “Oh, yeah, you’re fucked, Timmy-boy. You’re truly fucked this time.”

And I thought I’d impress these people with “Timothée”…

Jesus…

Here was this beautiful girl, casually dropping names of Portuguese restaurants _in fucking Portuguese_, and there was I with my dying print media, my paycheck handcuffed to its barely breathing corpse. 

Maybe, I need to start a blog, I thought and looked at the violets I brought her.

“I’ve never been,” I shrugged.

“You’ll love it,” she assured me.

It could have ended there and then if not for the way she said it. She didn’t sound smug or condescending, she simply thought that I’d love Lisbon. Yes, there was a bit of disconnect there, but I saw that her intent wasn’t to humiliate me or laugh at me, so I relaxed slightly.

I kept holding her hand, she ordered another frappuccino, and it seemed like we dodged it, that unfathomable something that ruins relationships before they have a chance to start.

In my defense, I got distracted by her hand, because she has very beautiful hands, as I mentioned earlier. Only second to her father’s, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

Ok, I was distracted, so I missed the moment when Jack’s shadow rose from the Atlantic depths and started hovering over us again. You ask me now, I honestly don’t know how it happened. I have no idea what faulty compass led us from Lisbon to the thorny subject of _Titanic _and feminism.

Look, it was May 2016 still, more than a year before the stink bomb of Harvey Weinstein exploded and covered the country with sleaze from coast to coast. So I had a lot of opinions back then that I shouldn’t have probably expressed so loudly, but hindsight is 20/20, right? I suspect I did something close to what eternally unlucky Matt Damon usually does – speak and get trounced for his efforts.

I meant well, like Obama. I really did. What Obama got in the end was writing memoirs while his legacy was being dismantled bill after bill; what I got was Caro calling me a “reactionary” and blasting me with some Roxane Gay.

All I said was that – with all due respect – but feminism can’t survive the ending of _Titanic_, because Jack didn’t. I’m all for equality, but equality in that case would mean two fatal hypothermias, instead of one.

I thought it made sense. Well, Matt Damon did too...

“Right, traditional place for a woman is in the kitchen and in the bedroom,” Caro’s nostrils flared and the hand was withdrawn.

“No, traditional place for a woman is on that door, not floating in icy waters!”

In my family, I said, there was never any moral dilemma about this: if we’d been on that ship, the three of us, me and Dad would’ve frozen to death and Mom would’ve been saved. She could be equal 24/7 on dry land, but then and there, please, climb on that door and look pretty.

I mean… I guess it’s less complicated in Michigan and, well, in Wisconsin: Mom should be saved, I don’t know what’s so reactionary about that.

“You love your mother,” Caro smiled and her eyes softened a bit.

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think there was anything particularly awe-inspiring about loving your mom. Tony Soprano’s mother tried to get him killed and he still loved her - here’s an achievement for you! The worst thing mine ever did was burning three issues of _Playboy_ she found under my mattress.

(Pornography is bad, by the way. Very reactionary. But thanks for the memories, Hugh!)

Anyway, after all this back and forth, and back-back-back, we finally stumbled on a relatively safe topic of family. I say “relatively,” because, again, hindsight is 20/20…

Her father, Armand, worked as an editor for Random House, lived on the West Side, and he and his wife separated when Caro was fourteen, and not long after that divorced.

Her mother was “probably in Colorado,” pioneered the technique of “blind painting” and certainly sounded like more interesting of the two. Her name was Liza P., “with a dot.” I asked why with a dot.

“So that people wouldn’t confuse her with Cardi B, who has none,” Caro told me. “She tried several letters, and P was the best.”

“What were the alternatives?” I smiled.

“Well, H for Hammer, or C for Chambers. She thought that H was like ‘Jesus H. Christ,’ and C…” she frowned. “Well, some could take C as in ‘cunt.’”

I suspect my dad’s jaw would’ve hit the table. I just blinked.

“Yes,” I nodded. “P with a dot is better.”

And I empathized with the woman – choosing a name is complicated business.

Caro got out her phone and showed me some of her mother’s paintings, and yes, not bad for a blind person. Well, she wasn’t technically blind, it’s just that part of her method required her to be blindfolded while creating. Still, not bad; maybe even saleable.

As a cherry on top, Caro’s grandpa on father’s side was a war photographer during WW2 and was later presented with Medal of Honor by Ronald Reagan himself. Hence, the Hammers, staunch Democrats that they are, had a soft spot for Reagan. Not to the point of hanging his portraits around the house, Caro clarified, but still a soft spot.

Caro was accepted into Harvard Law School, but “didn’t feel like it,” went to Europe for a year and later became a paralegal.

In short, when Alex Jones was ranting about coastal elites and wished to see them all in hell, he – probably, unbeknownst to him – meant my girlfriend’s family. No way around it.

Was I concerned? Nah, not really. I’m not much into hype. Last time someone made a great impression on me was when I was seven, and I didn’t think Robert Redford could be surpassed. Besides, Caro wasn’t elite in terms of money, just in terms of Michigan…

If I was superstitious, I’d’ve probably taken the fact that so much of that first date was spent on discussing fucking _Titanic _as a bad omen. But I’m not, or at least I’m not paranoid about it, so I brushed it off. Still, listening to her, I couldn’t help thinking about Jack. It didn’t go so well for him, did it? Got distracted by upper-class boobs and ended up on the bottom of the Atlantic.

#GirlPower

#OscarworthyPlot

I glanced at Caro’s décolletage, I’m not above it. I wouldn’t say they were worth dying for, but they looked substantial. Plus, she was a good person. That counted, too.

Decisions, decisions…

I have no idea what Caro was thinking. Probably, that here was Dustin reincarnate, haircut and all, and he could finally answer once and for all that burning question that so many native New Yorkers have, namely whether indoor plumbing existed anywhere west of the Appalachia. Plus, I seemed like a good person…

So, you could say we clicked. I didn’t kiss her that day and she didn’t seem to want it, but I accompanied her to her apartment and, when I asked, she told me that, yes, I could call her again.

I did. The rest is history.

On the pages of that history is our first kiss, our first lovemaking, her explaining to me that rice could be made from cauliflower, my hair getting in her bra clasp, her accidentally kicking me in the nuts, and her laughing, and me trying not to howl, incessant talking about Hillary, but even more about Trump, celebrating my first byline and throwing up after cheap sushi, running up her apartment’s stairs and going down on each other, getting drunk, getting wet from walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain, getting all nostalgic after rewatching “The Sopranos,” and holding, holding, holding on to that feeling…

That feeling of joy and hope, that weightlessness that being in love gives you. We were young, we were beautiful, our country was about to elect its first female president, New York skyline, drowning in summer sky, was that shining city upon a hill, a charmed castle that no wicked witch would dare touch.

And no matter what came later, I loved this girl. For as long as it lasted, I really loved this girl. I can say it honestly.

We were good together, me and Caro. I taught her how to survive if you get lost in a snowstorm, she made me read Roxane Gay and E.L. Doctorow, and we both couldn’t believe it when the DNC emails were released and it turned out they tried to sabotage Bernie’s campaign.

But if anything, the thing I remember most vividly was that Wednesday. Caro came to pick me up at the Post, took my hand and led me to St. Patrick’s.

“August 23,” she said sadly when we entered the cathedral, and I looked at her questioningly.

It didn’t mean anything to me.

Her birthday? Her birthday was in March…

I looked around. Big churches intimidate me, to be honest, but that’s what they are supposed to do, remind you of your insignificance, humble you a bit.

I still didn’t get it, she sighed.

“St. Bartholomew’s Day,” she looked at me. “St. Bartholomew’s night…”

My breath caught. I didn’t… I mean, I’d been talking about Huguenots and all, but I didn’t really know what it meant to me, if anything. And she took it seriously, same as she took it seriously when she told me about going to Lisbon one day.

Huguenots. Thousands of them killed in one night, because it was politically expedient, because they worshipped God differently, because it was a Catholic country and they weren’t Catholics. 

Henri de Navarre. Coligny. Flowering hawthorn. Rivers of blood.

“It’s Catholic…” I mumbled. “St. Patrick’s is Catholic…”

“That’s why,” she nodded and led me to the candlestand flickering with dozens of little flames.

“Your people,” she squeezed my hand. “Time to remember.”

I don’t know if my fingers were trembling when I lit a candle, but my throat hurt. I had no right, I thought, objectively speaking I had no right to feel this pain, and felt it nevertheless.

My people. Centuries ago some of my people managed to survive that night and fled, some of them ended up in Canada, then had to flee again, and here I was, lighting a candle in memory of those who didn’t, in a Catholic cathedral, centuries later.

Slaughter. Betrayal. Compromise. Politics. Always politics.

Tell me, Henri, was Paris worth a mass? And did you still believe it when that knife reached your heart?

Betrayals are costly, n’est-ce pas?

I glanced at Caro, candle light reflecting gently on her face, that face that I still loved, and couldn’t help thinking about the ugliness this election campaign had turned into, and how dangerous it was, and how stupid. And for a second, no longer than a second, I thought about Armand Hammer, whom I’d finally met two weeks earlier, and for the first time felt guilty that I was thinking about him.

How stupid it was, how dangerous…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!


	3. Chapter 3

On July 18th Republican National Convention started in Cleveland, and next day Donald Trump won the nomination for presidency from the Republican Party. Caro and I were watching – I because it was part of my job as a political reporter and she, I suspect, mostly because strong emotions, like fury, burn calories.

In a lot of ways what happened there became the reflection of 2016 in general – something you suspected all along could happen happened and it still stunned you. It looked and felt surreal, we were still treating Donald as a joke, but there was a moment there, watching his figure emerge from silvery smoke and thousands of blue, red, and white balloons rain down on a frenzied crowd, a short brief moment when I asked myself, “What if he wins? What if he beats all the odds and wins? What if Hillary loses? What the fuck will we do then?”

I’d talked to Adam from International not long before that. I didn’t much care for Brexit, to be honest, but I knew what happened there.

“How could they be so stupid?” I asked him. “Couldn’t they establish a 70 percent threshold or something, to know for sure what majority of the country wants? I mean, what was it, almost half-half for and against?”

He sighed. “Well, as least they had the nominal majority. With us, you can get more votes and still lose the presidency, like Gore.”

I remember I was alarmed, but I wasn’t alarmed enough. It was just an uncomfortable feeling in my chest, not yet dread, just a slight hesitation preceding the words, “Of course, Hillary will win, how can she not?”

Still, watching Trump on that stage and listening to Caro, who was angry, yes, but not a bit afraid, I thought, we’re not getting something, there’s something we’re missing in all of that. He wasn’t supposed to be there, he was supposed to lose to every one of his opponents and he beat them all. We were missing something…

“Despair,” Adam said to me. “A lot of Brexit was hate, but even more of it was despair. You shouldn’t underestimate it – it’s a powerful force, you can harness it, you can use it.”

Now I remembered his words and was thinking about my very first death threat that I received just a week earlier, after an article that I considered pretty innocuous; that uncomfortable feeling in my chest grew. The fact that we couldn’t understand them, those people who were celebrating that day in Cleveland, and they couldn’t understand us, that there were suddenly “us” and “them,” it wasn’t right, it didn’t smell of politics, but of something worse.

I’d been putting it off for a long time, but I knew I’d need to do it – I had to call my parents and ask them who they were going to vote for. And when I finally did and my dad said “Trump,” I realized I was surprised, but I wasn’t shocked, because by that time I thought I’d figured out what it was we were missing.

These days, you turn on the news, and you’ll hear people say - offhandedly, as if it’s something self-evident - that, you know, Hillary was a “terrible candidate.” It’s amazing, honestly. It’s the Iraq war all over again – now, when it’s clear that it’s a fiasco, now people shrug and “oh, well, it was a mistake, it was obvious”.

Right.

The thing is you couldn’t say anything like that in 2016 - about Hillary, I mean – and for obvious reasons, because, ok, if you weren’t for her, then who were you for? Trump? So we didn’t say anything, instead we laughed at Donald so hard, we could almost drown out our fears, laughed at him and felt guilty, if the laughter seemed at times forced.

So I wasn’t shocked when my dad told me that he was going to vote for him, but I didn’t tell Caro either. I knew she wouldn’t understand, she wouldn’t even try to. There were “us” and “them,” and “they” were evil, and “we” were good. What’s there to understand?

Anyway, I didn’t tell her. In November, Hillary will win and it won’t matter anymore, I thought. Then it will be easy for Caro to be kind and understanding – it’s always easier to be kind, when your side wins.

Plus, it would’ve been a terrible moment to tell her because she’d just asked me, if I wanted to meet her father.

(A piece of advice – don’t mistake it for a question, because it’s not, it’s a warning shot. And be grateful that she was thoughtful enough to give it, because some would dump their fathers on you without one.)

Admittedly, up to that point I gave zero thoughts to the said father. I knew he existed, he knew I existed, because Caro sometimes told me that “Dad says hi,” but it was clear that neither of us was eager for a sit-down.

I thought the whole thing would be reasonably awkward but safe. In my hometown such meetings are an event, simply because every father in my hometown has a hunting rifle and half of them can get squirrel in the eye, which is one of the reasons why teenage pregnancies dropped by 70 percent in Michigan in the last twenty years and why when her father said that his little sunshine had to be home by 10, you’d better get her there by 10, snowstorm or no snowstorm, and not look like she’d just given you a handjob in the car, while you were wrestling with the heater, either.

But here we had an editor. What could an editor possibly do to me? Cut my adjectives?

No, I wasn’t worried. I mean, I knew that some sort of mesmerizing bullshit had to be invented in order to justify my dating his daughter, but I thought I’d play the authenticity card again. Caro often called me “salt of the earth” in jest, maybe he was into it, too? Like, “Look, here’s Timothée, and he knows what bear traps look like. Isn’t it amazing?”

Isn’t it?

I thought that should be enough for him. Yeah, your sunshine is way out of my league, but aren’t you a Democrat, Mr. Hammer, Democrats are supposed to love poor people. So why don’t you start with me?

And Armand seemed like a nice guy, very understanding. I’d never had any trouble with him before. He was editing his books, I was sleeping with his daughter - everything was very civil. The only time he caused me a slight headache was when Caro mentioned that her father went to the gym twice a week.

(Another piece of advice – don’t mistake it for a random remark, because it’s not. When a girl is talking about her father and doesn’t add or imply “son of a bitch” at the end of the sentence, she’s describing an ideal man to you. Later I’ll concur.)

“Good for him,” I nodded.

Caro pursed her lips. “Don’t you want to have a six-pack?”

“I have a six-pack,” I sighed. “Look in the fridge.”

Ok, I’m not buff, I’m not even Buffy, I’m Dustin, you have to get your archetypes straight. I’m Dustin, and I doubt very much that, when they were developing _First Blood _for the screen, anyone ever said, “You know who’d be perfect for the part of Rambo? Dustin Hoffman!” Nah, I don’t think so.

So I looked at Caro and told her that she was a good liberal girl, and a skinny journalist was just right for her. I didn’t know if she seriously bought it, but she didn’t dump my ass then and there.

Objectively, we were a mismatch in many ways, but it wasn’t a problem for a long time, because my Michiganian mystique was still fresh. I landed squarely between “safe” and “exciting” – not “safe” enough to be a total bore, but not so “exciting” you had to periodically check how fast you could obtain a restraining order these days.

For example, out of all her friends, in a country where there are more guns than actual population, I was the only one who ever held a gun. I’m a poor shot, but only my parents knew that, and only my dad witnessed how bad. Plus, New York is famously tough on guns and I didn’t have one, I just knew how to load and aim, but it sounded “exciting” enough.

You see, Caro is a very civilized girl, very polite and cultured (she knew how to eat artichokes, for fuck’s sake), but from time to time jungle calls, and when it does, we rarely let it go to voicemail.

Case in point: Jason Bourne. We went to see another installment that was released that summer: fourth movie – and poor guy still couldn’t remember that he was a trained assassin and half the globe wanted to kill him. And they say Mexican telenovelas are trite…

But, anyway, Caro saw this magnificent male specimen, murdering his way to recovery and trying to protect the lady assigned to him by the writers this time, and her ovaries perked up. As a result, I got three fantastic orgasms that night for a price of two movie tickets.

Later I’d try to feed her _Die Hard_ franchise, but it didn’t work, probably because Bruce had to know better and put this cash cow out to pasture, while the events portrayed still made even an ounce of sense. Caro is a smart girl – ensuing sex was so-so.

But Jason did it, and he did it so well, I decided we needed to clarify some things.

“Caro,” I turned to her, “if you’re with me and push comes to shove, don’t hesitate, call 911.”

She replied that I had to love myself better and harsh self-criticism stopped me from uncorking my true potential.

She was only half-joking. I got scared.

Look, I love myself, I love myself plenty but, as my father likes to say, let’s be realistic here – I know my true potential well enough to admit that I’m pretty impotential in a bar fight.

“Caro, please,” I got up on my elbow and looked at her pleadingly, “don’t hesitate, call them, so that they could get there in time to resuscitate me.”

She rolled her eyes but promised. Two weeks later she mentioned that her father went to the gym two times a week.

Well, he could afford to treat her to a Portuguese restaurant in fucking Portugal, too, and I could do the same, but in Jamaica, Queens. What did she want me to do? Inequality is a grave problem in our society, I doubted push-ups could solve it.

Still, Mr. Hammer was kind enough to find the time - between his commas and dumbbells - to meet me, and I had to look as if it was the best thing ever, and I tried.

We agreed on a quiet café not far from the Post; or Caro said and we both agreed, I suppose. I got out my beige chinos, rolled up my sleeves and assured myself that if he was a good editor, he’d know a prodigy, when he saw one. Unfortunately, if he was a hack, he’d recognize one of his kind, too; but, I thought, if he earned enough for a ticket to Portugal, he couldn’t be that bad.

How good he was remained a mystery that day, but he was certainly late. When, after ten minutes, I asked whether he’d come at all, Caro looked at me as if it was all my fault and I shut up. I was hungry, too, but Caro ordered us both lychee bubble tea and didn’t seem to think that a steak would go great with it right now.

“Maybe he forgot?” I glanced at her.

“I’m his daughter,” she replied.

I shut up again.

“Why did they divorce?” I tried in another five minutes.

Caro frowned. “Mom got bored, I suppose,” she said finally.

I understood Liza P. – I hadn’t even met the guy, and I was bored already.

Well, he appeared eventually, he didn’t forget that he had a daughter, and when he appeared… You know, it’s tempting to say that time stopped or music started, or some such, but the thing is my first thought on seeing him was the suspicion that he stopped at the wrong table.

But no, he stayed, apologized for being late, smiled. Caro stood up, I stood up, he kissed her cheek and called her “Cara,” I offered him my hand from across the table and thought, if this one couldn’t keep a woman, there’s no hope for the rest of us.

“And this is my Tim,” Caro smiled.

Her Tim nodded in agreement. “Timothée.”

Mr. Hammer shook my hand. “I believe I know how to write it,” he joked.

“Would be strange, if you didn’t,” I blurted. “I mean, you’re an editor…”

He looked at me again and the right corner of his lips moved in something that promised to become a smile, but didn’t quite deliver. If he suspected I was a prodigy, he covered it well.

We sat. He apologized again – his phone died at the last minute, so he couldn’t call. Cara said something, he replied something else. I studied his dark ochre blazer. They both looked expensive – the garment and Mr. Hammer. The gym showed, too.

No, your regular run-of-the-mill bullshit of “I love your daughter very much, sir, very much” won’t work here, I decided. It was time for “my journalistic career promises to be long and fulfilling, and Jeff Bezos himself is ecstatic that he hired me.”

On second thought, let’s cut the Bezos part. You never know, maybe the guy actually knows him, and if he does, he can easily find out that dear Jeff has no idea about my existence. Yeah, let’s cut the Bezos…

“So, Timothée,” Mr. Hammer looked at me and I nodded. “I heard you’re from Michigan.”

“I am,” I nodded again. “Otter’s Corner.”

It didn’t look like he had a chance to visit. “Um,” he cocked his head.

“We’re famous for our robust wildlife,” I said and Caro frowned.

“Robust?” he asked.

“Robust,” I confirmed.

“Let me guess,” the corner of his lips moved again. “Otters?”

“Tim is working for _Washington Post_ now,” Caro supplied, and I wanted to kiss her feet out of gratitude, because it was becoming weird and I didn’t know how to stop it.

“Yes,” I said eagerly. “I do.” _And I know where Lisbon is, so we can all go home now. Please. _

“What’s your subject?” he asked helpfully.

I was looking at his shoulders, it’s neither here nor there, but it might explain why I said what I said.

“Dandruff,” I frowned.

He frowned, too.

“And politics,” I added hastily. “Mostly politics now.”

“That’s quite a range,” he smiled for the first time.

“I started in sports,” I nodded. “Cricket.”

The waiter came. Mr. Hammer glanced at our teas and, I thought, swallowed a sigh, but manfully ordered a cup of coffee. Caro was looking at me and, when I opened my mouth to ask him if he was hungry too, covered my hand with hers and asked instead, how grandpa was.

“Stubborn,” he shrugged. “As always. But he has company now…”

Caro winked at me. “Grandpa has a girlfriend.”

“Well…” Mr. Hammer didn’t seem particularly happy about it.

“She is thirty-two,” Caro bit her lip.

I tried to calculate and arrived at an age that didn’t seem possible. “Who’s he, Mick Jagger?”

“He’s a… robust old man,” Mr. Hammer glanced at me.

But that grandpa wasn’t only robust, he was also amphibious, because it turned out he had a boat in Maine, where he currently resided, and regularly went out to sea, probably with his girlfriend. They were talking about that, I was listening and mostly looking.

Mr. Hammer was a handsome man, to put it mildly. His hair was that very light brown that in another light could pass for blond, not that golden wheat that my man, Robert, is famous for, but still blond; and his eyes were the color of ice that my dad would call “a trap,” because its blueish color seems safe, especially in the sun, but really isn’t, and the blue you see is the water visible underneath: one wrong step, you fall through, and the current carries you away, forever.

I followed the line of his shoulders again, spent some time on the hairs jutting from the open collar of his black shirt and, when his coffee arrived, studied the neatly manicured hand holding the cup: smooth long fingers, sharp wrist and a silver signet ring with a black stone.

Something was bothering me. Not about the hand, the hand was fine, it was… It was a very beautiful hand. But there was something I was missing…

I glanced at my watch discreetly, then raised my eyes back at him and found him looking straight at me, his eyes calm and thoughtful.

I almost pissed myself. I don’t know how I didn’t – twenty minutes had passed since he arrived, and I had no idea when and how it happened, but here, right in front of me, was sitting my “maybe.” My another “maybe.” A man. Caro’s father.

“I need to use the bathroom,” I announced clearly, only then realizing that I interrupted something Caro was saying.

There was a brief silence.

He cocked his head. Caro frowned.

“I’m… sorry,” I told him, my voice strained as if my nuts were in a vice under the table.

“By all means,” he replied, ice and laughter in his voice.

“Are you alright?” Caro leaned to me and whispered.

“Yes,” I nodded. “Yes, yes, yes. I’m just… just there and back. Just…” I waved my hand in uncertain direction. “I’ll be quick.”

No objection followed, so I scurried to the bathroom. Normally, I don’t scurry, I walk in firm wide strides, but I scurried and continued to do so, until I locked myself in the cubicle, where my first hysterical thought was, “What if I scream now?”

I wanted to. Mr. Hammer wouldn’t know it was me, but Caro would, she kicked me in the nuts once, and my current feeling was very similar to the way I felt then.

It’s a mistake, I told myself, it can’t be anything else. I don’t sleep enough, work too much, don’t eat enough vegetables, live in an unaired apartment…

This is not me, I don’t feel this way about men…

What if he noticed?

Was it noticeable?

Is he gay?

Am I?

What if…

Jesus…

I don’t know how long I was sitting there. I really didn’t want to come out. In any way.

But I had to, because if he didn’t notice anything strange about me before, he certainly would notice my disappearance. He’d think I wanted to leave him with the bill. Which would be awkward, of course, but not as awkward as saying, “You know, I think I can imagine having sex with you. Just a feeling…”

Can you pray away the gay?

Mike Pence thought so. Hey, Mike, can you pray away an old gay, too?

Fuck, he’s old.

No, he is not. He is… ripe. Doesn’t seem very sweet, though. So, like a lemon…

Jesus…

I need to piss, I decided finally, and forget. Yes, piss and forget. Tomorrow’s another day, maybe I’ll meet another old-timer…

I wasn’t very successful with the first, and it was too early for the second, but I had no excuse to stay there any more, so I opened the door and took a step forward, and then saw _him _entering the bathroom.

I got back so fast and slammed the door so firmly, the whole structure shuddered.

Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t…

“I apologize for interrupting…” I heard his voice from behind the door. He coughed awkwardly, “Cara wanted to know if you were ok.”

I leaned on the door. “I don’t know,” I said quietly.

He coughed again. “Do you… Are you ill?”

It was 2016. Trump got the republican nomination, and I was hiding from Caro’s father in a toilet cubicle – it was a surreal year, I’m telling you.

I unlocked the door and stepped out. He was standing right behind it and took a step back, looking at me with concern. I tried to smile, but caught reflection of his ass in the mirror above the sinks and groaned. A guy at the urinals threw a quick glance at us and turned away.

“You look pale,” he frowned.

“I am pale,” I shrugged. What else can I be when Michigan is almost Canada, and Canada is almost North Pole?

“Maybe you’re…” he started saying.

“I received another death threat today,” I interrupted. I didn’t mean to tell him that - I didn’t tell Caro, I never told things like that to my parents.

But it was true. I did. It started with “Hey, faggot…”

“Did you call the police?” he asked immediately.

“We get hundreds every day,” I sighed. “They can’t investigate them all.”

He looked at the floor between us. “I work with Salman Rushdie. I know it’s tough,” he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “This election will be over soon.”

There was a lot I could tell him then, but it was decidedly not the time or the place. “Let’s go back. I’m fine.”

“Timothée…”

“I will never put Caro at risk,” I said firmly. “Ever. I promise.”

We looked at each other silently, and I knew it was true, it wasn’t a fluke, or a malfunction, or aberration, or anything - he was my “maybe,” inexplicably, suddenly.

We returned to our table, and I apologized to Caro, saying I didn’t have enough sleep lately. She was worried, so Mr. Hammer suggested we go home and asked for the bill. I went for my wallet, but he stopped me and I didn’t have it in me to argue about that then.

He shook my hand and told me to call him “Armand” when I addressed him as “Mr. Hammer,” so I said “Goodbye, Armand,” and he said “Goodbye, Timothée,” and Caro and I went to my place.

That’s it. That’s how I met her father.

And you know what? I wasn’t worried. I thought, what a bizarre thing to happen, I never imagined I could be attracted to a man; but I was pretty sure it was innocent, almost a joke. That year, we all did that – we tried to treat scary things as a joke, until it seemed there was nothing left to laugh about.

No, I wasn’t worried at all, not until Caro had a brilliant idea to watch “Brokeback Mountain.”

I know, I know… It sounds like a farce, but it didn’t seem like one then, because I immediately thought that she suspected something and tried to start the conversation in such a roundabout way.

“No,” I snorted. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” she frowned.

“Because,” I replied curtly and went to the kitchen for a beer.

“Because what?”

“Look, can’t we watch something about straight people tonight?”

She was silent, so I turned and looked at her.

“I know you’re from a small town, Tim…” she started and got quiet.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She chewed her lip, then finally looked at me. “Insecurity is unattractive.”

“I have no problem with gay people, I promise,” I sighed. “Look, this movie is so depressing. Don’t you have enough at work? I mean… If you want Heath Ledger, I have _The Dark Knight _here somewhere…”

She was still looking at me, and I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, as I didn’t like the implications of this “small town” remark, but I didn’t want to go there that day. I just didn’t want to. In all honesty, I’d’ve preferred to be alone, but we’d agreed earlier that she’d stay over, and so here we were.

“Finn is gay,” she said.

Finn was the guy she worked with. I saw him several times, but we never said more than a casual “hi” to each other.

“Yeah, I know. So?”

“_How_ do you know?” her eyes narrowed.

“How do I?..” I began and stopped. I had no idea how I knew, I just did. “That’s a very good question…” I murmured and took a swig of my beer. “Very good question…”

What about Armand?

I drank again.

“How did _you_ know?” I asked her.

“He told me,” she rolled her eyes.

“Did you ask him?” I was curious. Could it be that simple? Ok, let’s forget for a moment, that he’s my girlfriend’s father, but could it be that simple between men? As simple as with girls? Could you just ask? I mean, in my town… No, it’s a good town, a very peaceful, nice town, we voted for Obama, we loved Obama, but you couldn’t just ask a guy a question like that in my town.

I looked at Caro, she was blushing.

“What?” I chuckled. “You did, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“But?”

“Look, girls know these things,” she rolled her eyes again. “You can feel it.”

“Look at me.”

She did. I braced myself.

She blinked. I raised an eyebrow.

“And?” she asked.

Bullshit, I relaxed, girls know nothing. I just had an intimate moment with your father in the men’s room, and you think I’m a homophobe…

Then I had an idea. “You asked him out, didn’t you?” I smiled slowly. “Finn. You asked him out, that’s when he told you.”

“I’m hungry,” she huffed and went to the fridge. I caught her around the waist and lifted her up.

“You asked him out!” I laughed.

“Let me go!” she shrieked. “Let me… let me…”

I started kissing her neck, grabbed her tighter. “Tell me, did you?”

She sighed. “I did. Jealous?”

“Very,” I licked her ear. “I’ll have to challenge him to a duel now.”

“Don’t be silly,” she smiled and turned to kiss me, which basically meant that she wasn’t so opposed to the idea.

I need to know about Armand, I thought while kissing her back. If somehow I figured out about Finn on my own, I’ll be able to diagnose Mr. Hammer too. I just need some more time with him.

What I was going to do with my diagnosis, I had no idea, but I was dying to know. Knowing, I believed, would be enough. It’s like fantasizing about Selena Gomez – if she lived next door, weren’t famous and Justin didn’t exist, oh, she’d totally fall for me, totally. She’d see what a catch I was, Selena would. If only she lived next door, if only Justin didn’t exist…

It’s a nice little fantasy, gets you through many a lonely night.

But if Armand was gay, there is no way he didn’t feel anything. No way. Two “maybes,” they know.

So I needed to meet him again and was actively plotting a way to do it, but couldn’t come up with anything believable enough, when the gods smiled upon me: it turned out on August 28th there was going to be a party, and I was invited – Armand was turning fifty…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always and for everything. I hope all's well in your corner of the world.


	4. Chapter 4

The good thing about sudden homosexuality is that it doesn’t upset your daily routine. You wake up, brush your teeth, go to work, meet people – and it’s the same it was yesterday. No one suddenly goes, “Hey, Tim, what’s up with you? Discovered you were gay the other day?”

No, relax, there are no outward signs. Nothing that separates gay folks from non-gay, so you can safely blend in and keep sleeping with your girlfriend. She’d never know you’d just had a rather colorful dream starring her father.

Well, of course, I was beside myself for about three days and two nights after meeting Armand, but then I got tired of it. What was the point? It’s like that tree falling in the forest – if no one notices, why go to all the trouble?

Plus, I did a lot of therapeutic googling.

In the age when God became unreliable, we found ourselves another source of infinite wisdom. And it’s truly infinite – “am I gay?” question offers you more than 500 million answers. I couldn’t go through them all – work, girlfriend – but I read some. It looked like I was a late bloomer - most folks figured that shit at twelve. But there were enough confused people still, hence 500 million links.

The consensus was that if you’re not sure, look at Brad Pitt. Don’t turn away. Pay attention. Feeling something?

A lot of guys did, but tried to be all vague about it, which is, come on, by the time you’re googling if you’re gay or not, obfuscation is useless. #NoHomo won’t save you.

Brad, I had to admit, looked nice, very nice: fair-haired, slim, fifty-two – almost Robert Redford, almost Armand… Just what the doctor ordered, only with Angelina on the side. (Not for long, though – they’d file for divorce in about a month.)

The only thing that bothered me for a night was age. I like old people, but it truly surprised me how much. Was it, God help me, daddy issues?

Nah, that’s a girl’s decease.

And still…

I tried to think about my dad, I didn’t remember us having any issues, but when life throws you such a curveball you shouldn’t be hasty in your conclusions.

I imagined my dad plowing snow in the yard, beaver hat and all. I tried to be honest with myself, but no matter how hard I tried I didn’t find it erotic in the slightest. Then I thought about him strolling around the house in his boxers…

No, Mom and I had different tastes, that was obvious.

And I never even called him “Daddy,” it was always “Dad,” or “Pa,” or “Look, I need a twenty…”

So, a girl’s decease. Good.

In sum, don’t worry. If it happens to you, welcome another half of population into your pants and keep walking. As I said, no one will even notice. But if it’s bugging you so much, take “bisexual” – it doesn’t sound so scary, and a lot of people think it’s a whim, and whims are generally more forgivable. Geography will tell you the same – in New York it’s “gay,” in Alabama – all “bisexual” all the way, and in Iran, famously, there are only straight people, so I’ll probably never get a visa now.

Anyway, I adapted to my new reality relatively quickly, but with Armand – the jury was still out. Personally, I thought it’d be very inconsiderate of him to end up straight, after he turned my world upside down for three days and two nights. But people are innately selfish, what can you do?

Well, I needed to know for sure, so I was plotting and plotting and plotting how I could accidentally run into him on an island with population density of 70,826 people per square mile and had to finally admit that it was highly unlikely, when Caro said, “It’s my dad’s birthday soon.”

Ok, I was talking about Google before, but Google can’t give you that, these things only come from the Almighty, and thank God for him.

I thought about what to wear, Caro agonized about the gift, and the word “fifty” first entered the conversation. I had mixed feelings about that: on one hand, Armand was older than _Windows_; on the other, I was going to be twenty-five in December. Of course, he’d still be fifty, but twenty-five was closer to fifty than twenty-four.

Still, Armand was a lot to take all at once. He’s tall, too. Did I mention it? Well, he is. I’m the tallest one in my family, and he is taller than me. My mom often said that I should bring my “friend” for a visit, but I could only imagine her face if I appeared with a 6’5” dude in tow.

But first things first, and first we needed a gift. Caro thought it was very sweet of me to show so much interest in the matter. I knew it was wicked. It didn’t stop me.

“I don’t know what to give him,” she sighed. “He has everything.”

“Well, what does he like to do?”

She furrowed her brow. “Reading, swimming… Ok, I don’t know if he likes swimming, but he’s good at it.” She thought some more. “Vodka.”

Lovely…

“Does he have a hobby?” I tried. “Collects something maybe?” I had no idea what old people collected, but I knew they usually collected some useless shit and in big amounts.

Her face cleared. “Vinyl! He has a lot of vinyl records,” she smiled.

Yeah, he’s totally gay, I thought, until I remembered that my dad had a couple of them, too.

“I’ll buy him gloves,” she finally decided. “Nice leather gloves.”

Now_ I_ was offended. Imagine that, you had the pluck to survive Vietnam war, Oil Embargo, Berlin wall, Tiananmen, fall of the Soviet Union, Hammer pants and dot-com bubble – and all you get for your troubles is a pair of gloves.

#LifeSucksAndThenYouDie

“Let’s get him a stripper cake at least,” I suggested.

If I emerge from that cake in red sequins, we’ll know once and for all which team Armand is playing for.

Caro laughed. “He’d love it.”

Would he now? Interesting.

“Wait, that’s a great idea!” she looked at me.

Huh?

“Cake,” she continued. “Let’s get him a cake. Something special.”

So we were thinking about that cake and finally decided that it should look like a book open on pages 49 and 50. It was as boring as we could come up with, I guess. But he was turning fifty, and we both weren’t even twenty-five, so we were pretty sure that all the fun had ended by page 35 - book-cake was appropriate. I offered to pay for the half of it, and Caro thought it was sweet too, and I knew it wasn’t.

Already in the bakery, we realized we hadn’t thought what to write on it.

“To the best Dad in the world,” Caro mused, looking at the rows of cakes behind the glass.

“‘To my nigga/Who brought me into this world/Ha!’”

Yeah, that.

I even scythed the air to the beat.

(Piece of advice… Well, the only advice here is don’t. Just don’t. If you aren’t black, don’t. And even if you are, Spike Lee might do some diabolical brutality to your ass, and he’ll probably have a point.)

Caro stared at me, then glanced around to see if anyone else heard.

“It’s a quote,” I raised my hands.

“Well, here’s another one: ‘Get the fuck out of here before I shove your quotation book up your fat fucking ass!’” she hissed.

“I love black people,” I tried.

(See? It just gets worse. Don’t. We forgive it to Tarantino, but even with him, if you ask around, you’ll hear, “Yeah, Brother Quentin is desperate to look black,” and I’ve never seen it said without an eyeroll.)

“Let’s go to another bakery,” she walked past me. “Before there is a need to resuscitate you…”

After that I wasn’t consulted about anything. We got to another place, Caro left an order for the 28th, saying she’d need some time to think about the writing, then we went hunting for the gloves. I kept my mouth firmly shut, that is until we got to the Prada boutique and I saw the prices. They are jaw-dropping.

You know, maybe getting to fifty isn’t such a feat, after all. I mean, Armand is a great guy, no question, and is worth his weight in gold, I just wasn’t yet sure he was worth half my rent plus the cake. Not that I hadn’t seen expensive things before, and yes, you get used to it somewhat after working on Manhattan for a year, but I couldn’t help thinking, “No, I won’t be able to afford two members of this family. And the mistress usually gets a better deal, so if Armand at some point agrees to be my mistress… No, I need to start a blog… Or maybe Gwyneth is hiring…”

Love is expensive, my friends, and two-timing is a luxury in this economy, so stay true - fidelity is cheaper.

But fidelity is boring, so I paid my half and Caro forgave me a bit. That night at her place, I got up and sneaked into the living room, opened the rectangular black box the gloves came in and carefully slipped one of them on my hand.

It felt enormous, almost like Simba stepping into his father’s paw print, and it was a wrong thing to do, and I knew it. All jokes aside, I knew it, but it filled me with dark hot expectation and made my cheeks burn. It was secret pleasure, smuggled in false bottom of my splitting life: a stolen handshake, a stolen caress.

Will he know, I thought, when he puts this glove on, will he feel it, my phantom hand gliding over his skin? Will he shiver and not know why? And if he touches his lips afterwards, will he swallow nervously, echo of my smell on his fingertips?

I wanted this glove to remember and keep it, like ocean remembers sunken ships. How many treasure chests, how many histories are we passing over every day? Waltz in the air and a glass in your hand, you smile and then – one look overboard, and you remember, for a split second you remember something you never knew – faces, places, pearls swallowed by the abyss at the time when even maps were different.

I didn’t want him to know. I wanted him to feel it.

My blushing cheeks.

Our secret.

That’s why, when several days later Caro brought me to St. Patrick’s, I felt guilty thinking about him. Because I was thinking about that glove, too. Because it was time to ask, “And if he is gay, then what? What the fuck will you do then?”

But I didn’t want to think about it, and the reality was helpful in that regard - on August 17 Trump appointed Steve Bannon as his campaign manager, and every pair of Democratic balls shrank for a whole minute.

Why? Because where Trump was blunt and loud, Bannon was sneaky and calculating. Where he was vicious, Bannon was even more so.

I had to deal with Bannon to the extent that any journalist at the time had to deal with him and _Breitbart_. And what we learned early on was that it was a battle you simply couldn’t win. You could try to say that, even imperfect as it was, Obamacare still saved thousands of people from financial ruin and years of debt; and they would reply, “Yeah, but Obama is a Muslim, is a Muslim, is a Muslim!!!” or “All feminists are ugly and just wish they had dicks.” And they’d keep saying it, until your head was ready to explode and you were about to cry, “Fuck it! It’s not worth it! Think what you want!”

They were _Fox News_, only with lesser budget and editorial responsibility, and Steve Bannon turned them into a cyber army that could scare and silence even mature professionals. It was Bannon who discovered and promoted such intellectual giants as Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos. Ben had pre-puberty voice and Dick Cheney’s ambitions, and Milo was sure he was another Trump, only good-looking; and both of them went up in flames eventually, because neither could master the art of not giving a fuck to the degree that Donald had done.

Because Trump… Trump didn’t give a fuck. That was it. That was the whole strategy, as far as I could see. And only in November we realized that it was a winning one.

But the scariest thing? The scariest thing was that Trump _enjoyed_ it. He did. Everything. All of it. His rallies, his debate smackdowns, his interviews with snickering reporters. It was like watching a monster semi-truck thundering down Fifth Avenue - burning helicopters smashing into the buildings and lampposts falling down like so many toothpicks – with Donald at the wheel, laughing and chanting, “I love this job! Love it! Love it!” And right in the headlights stood Hillary, and we all looked at her and hoped that she’d flip this semi for us, and we all prayed that she’d do it in time.

So, when in August Trump got together with Bannon, it was akin to a mindless torpedo suddenly getting a homing mechanism - Trump simply wanted to win, Bannon knew what to do with the victory. 

Fuck, I thought, we better have some October surprise ready, and it better be of high-octane caliber, because I don’t see any bat ears on Hillary’s head.

Stanley sent me to interview some guys from the Bernie-or-bust camp. We talked. It scared me in the same way that the mood in Flint did. Here was another scar that betrayals usually leave – they hated Trump, but they couldn’t forgive Democratic establishment for the way they treated Bernie.

I tried to convince them that it would be either Hillary or Trump in the end, no matter what; and they quoted to me Daenerys fucking Targaryen and thought that by not voting they’d “break the wheel.”

And so it went…

Michelle advised us to “go high,” Trump sneered and made pencils disappear, and I was starting to suspect that if Armand Hammer was gay and decided to take permanent residence in my heart, he’d be too big to leave a place for any neighbors.

Cue the party.

Well, I know, I know, when someone says “party,” you imagine something fun and wild. Easy, tiger. The guy was turning fifty after all, so “party” meant a quiet dinner in his apartment with a bunch of people who still had Facebook accounts and thought it was cool.

The apartment was a “maybe,” too, though. I looked around at all the dark hardwood floors and ormolu clocks and thought, yeah, I could live here, I can imagine it, won’t be such a sacrifice. Also there was a sofa - or whatever - in the living room, looked like a bathtub but with its front side cut off, and it seemed like a comfortable enough thing to lose the rest of your virginity on. I have no idea why I noticed it, but I did.

Armand himself looked passable. Personally, I like black and red, and Caro was kind enough to buy a set of lingerie in those colors, which looked glorious on her and which I enjoyed a lot. Well, her father didn’t seem to think that my aesthetic feelings mattered at all, so he donned some simple white shirt and blue jeans so commonplace, they made me think again that half of my rent was wasted on those gloves. The man couldn’t appreciate what God gave him, it was clear. Thankfully, he rolled up the sleeves, because that’s the best way to enjoy beautiful hands – from fingertips to the elbow; otherwise, I don’t know what he was thinking…

I mean, the guy could seduce Mike Pence if he applied himself, but no, let’s look ordinary… For fuck’s sake, could you at least get that shirt wet or something?

I mean, I’m busting my ass at work and then I have to come home to _this_?!

Anyway, we brought the cake and we brought the gloves, and Caro was wearing a stunning black dress, and, if you forgot the birthday boy’s shabbiness, you could even hope to enjoy yourself at some point. Or so I thought.

You know what they say, it’s darkest before the dawn? Well, it is.

Prepare yourself.

No, seriously.

It’s just…

Ok, fuck it!

This ungrateful fool had a girlfriend…

Yeah, that’s right – nursing home is just around the corner, but no one wants to go there gently these days.

For a second my vision went as red as Caro’s panties du jour.

Give me the gloves! Give me the cake, too! We’re leaving! What kind of swindle is that? 

I mean…

I was looking at this chick being all cozy in his kitchen and seriously considered going back to “straight,” because “bisexual” seemed like a waste of talent right then.

No, honestly, while I survived on the memories of his ass in the bathroom mirror, he was living the life, so to speak, carousing around town and collecting garter belts. And judging by Caro’s nonchalance, she knew about it all along and didn’t think I had to be informed.

This family will be the death of me…

The lady in question was Estelle, and if it’s not clear by now, I hated her. Maybe not enough to run her over with a bulldozer, but just enough to wish that she got some gig in Australian Outback and never saw our shores again.

Don’t worry, she hated me too. Only she couldn’t figure out why. I saw the puzzlement on her face while we were being introduced – chicks are intuitive creatures, they can have trouble spotting a gay guy, but a rival they sense a mile away.

And what kind of name was “Estelle” anyway? She was a fraud through and through. I bet she came up with it after watching a season of _Dynasty, _or something equally putrid.

(I know you can’t blame people for lacking French-Canadian blood, but surely there are exceptions!)

The only bright spot in all this mess was that Estelle was in foul mood and understandably so. You see, she’s a political media consultant, and up to that point her biggest claim to fame was excavating Anthony Weiner out of that black hole his restless dick had plunged him into.

And – no, wait for it! – just that morning _New York Times _broke the news that dear, sweet Anthony decided to commit another political hara-kiri – with an underage girl this time – that would eventually get him 21 months in jail and gut Hillary in the process (only we didn’t know it then).

So, if you want to blame someone for Trump, don’t look at Michigan and Wisconsin, blame Armand’s girlfriend.

What? If Michael Moore can blame Gwen Stefani, I can blame Estelle. It’s only fair. The only difference is that he’s joking, and I’m not.

And if there’s still any doubt that she was a mistake in Armand’s life, then look no further than the fact that he met her at the gym. That was enough to solidify my opinion that exercise is evil and must be avoided at all cost, because if Armand caught _that_ there, who knows what I’d get? No, thank you.

For a long time it was like fantasy football between me and Estelle, in a sense that you’re not sure whether you’re playing or not, but it still hurts. Jealousy can turn you into a Yoda – green and in possession of unheard of mental powers, so every time she dared to touch his wrist I sent another Death Star her way. And she winced, and she didn’t know why.

Eventually we moved to the dining room, because the food was there and because people like Armand have one. I looked around again and confirmed my suspicions that, indeed, I could live there, indeed, I could: the chairs had embroidered seats and the crystalware looked authentic. Besides, the food smelled so nice, I could almost forget what a traitor he was. For a minute.

On the mantelpiece – because he had one – stood a painting whose artist’s blind hand I recognized immediately.

“Mom sent you a gift?” Caro beamed.

He nodded.

We stood and looked at it. Caro interpreted it as a setting sun, I – as human ass and thought, “Good for you, Liza! Good for you! I’d do the same: dump him and then, ten years later, send him a picture of my ass, just to remind him what a loser he was, and on his birthday. Brilliant move, my dear!”

But even if it was a sun, who sends a setting sun to a man in the autumn of his life? Morbid much?

I don’t know what we were eating, don’t ask. It was great and looked like something that I’d never seen in my Michiganian kitchen. The main dish, it turned out, was prepared by Armand himself, it had rice and a lot of other stuff in it, and he acknowledged that it was the only thing he knew how to cook. Good, I like modest men, no need to show off, it’s very unattractive.

We ate, we talked about Trump, then Rome under Caesar, then Paris in the fall, then my man tried to demonstrate that he wasn’t a fossil Caro and I thought he was and declared he knew what _Poke__́__mon GO_ was.

I mean, he can be endearing, and that rice thing he made was good… So I glanced at Estelle again and tried to judge her objectively. Objectively, she had long shapely legs crowned by somewhat underwhelming ass, 25-year-old face and 45-year-old hands – gym showed, charisma didn’t.

Honestly, if he spent his time hunting shiny Bulbasaurs, he’d spend it better. She wasn’t ugly, or anything, she just… Well, she wasn’t me, so I had no idea what possessed him to go after this chick, except loneliness and blue balls.

There were two other couples, besides me and Caro. All of them closer to the grave than we were, but otherwise very nice folks. I got into conversation with a guy across from me, and we talked about _The Selling of the President _that I was then reading, so he suggested _The Company _by John Ehrlichman, if I was interested in Watergate.

Periodically I looked at Armand, periodically he looked at me, but it was dining-room eyes, not bedroom eyes, so I couldn’t be sure about anything.

Caro leaned towards me and whispered that I should go and get the cake from the kitchen, so I did. It was in a big box with a beautiful golden bow on top. I brought it in and put before Armand, and everyone was watching him untying that bow.

Inside there was a beautiful cream book opened on pages 49 and 50, and on each page there was writing: 49 – “We don’t stop playing because we grow old,” 50 – “We grow old because we stop playing.”

Estelle made a face when she read it, but I was the only one who noticed, because I was the only one watching. Armand smiled and kissed Caro on the cheek, and she said that it was a quote by George Bernard Shaw, and I had to agree it was better than the n-word, but still melancholy.

I wasn’t sure, but I thought there was something in his eyes while he was reading it, some brief spark that I thought had to be preserved there, but I didn’t know if it was real or just reflection of all the crystal on the table.

He’s not old, I wanted to say. You all think he’s old, but he is not. He’s only fifty, and I’ll be twenty-five very soon, and in this country, where Trump now has a chance to become a president, we should have a chance, too, however improbable. Because, you see, no matter who wins in November, half the country will be celebrating, and the other one will be crying, but we need to learn to live with each other, because no matter how wrong they seem to us and how crazy we seem to them, we are still part of one nation, one family.

So, yes, I know it’s wrong, he’s my girlfriend’s father, I know, but he’s still my “maybe,” and it’s scary to imagine how high the price could be but sometimes there’re no perfect choices, sometimes, no matter what you do, someone will get hurt. Still, I believe I need to try, I just need to try and reach for it, and, who knows, we all might win in the end – it’s 2016, anything can happen…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!


	5. Chapter 5

Septembers are different in this city, and the fall that year arrived like a slap to a hysteric. At night I was lying in bed, sometimes with Caro by my side, sometimes alone, often sad, more often angry. Angry at Armand, but really at myself.

I felt like a kid who’d been saving for months to buy a ticket for his favorite musician, travelled several states and stood in line for hours to get an autograph, only to realize that this guy he’d been worshipping is a rude unkempt drunk. Yes, that someone whose lyrics spoke directly to you, who used to be more than Bob Dylan and the Bible in your eyes, he was unforgivably ordinary and human.

It’s like a betrayal, you can’t help feeling that it’s a betrayal, you were going to change your life for him and he… he didn’t give a damn. He tiredly signed what you gave him and you caught the smell of whiskey on his breath and saw that his hair was greasy and his tattoos fading, and when you tried to tell him how much he meant to you, he didn’t even nod, because he was exhausted and bored, heard it all before and it didn’t mean much to him anymore.

But whose fault was that? His? No, even when your rage and disappointment were at their peak, still deep down you knew that it’s you and only you, that he didn’t owe you anything – those words you whispered to yourself at night, that often helped you get through the day, they weren’t written for you, and in reality you don’t even know how and why they were written. No, it wasn’t his fault that you believed in your own fantasies too much.

I was wrong, I thought, I forgot a thing about “maybes” – they so easily slip into “might have beens.” What the hell did I expect would happen with Armand? The guy saw me only once, I was his daughter’s boyfriend, he was in a relationship – what the hell did I expect him to do? Start winking at me lasciviously and groping me under the table? Really? No, if he did, I knew I would’ve despised him.

So, what did I want?

Maybe I just wanted to look at him and see, “Yes, it’s happening to me, too. And I don’t know what to do with it, and I don’t know how to stop it.” But I saw nothing, or couldn’t read him well enough, and so it hurt. Losing someone you never had hurts, it turned out.

So I felt sad and abandoned and shit, and I wasn’t alone. That fall was a season of discontent for a lot of folks. Brad – Pitt, that is – had just been kicked out of the house. The nation mourned. I don’t know how the Brits dealt with Diana and Charles divorcing, but when our royalty called it quits, we all knew that love was dead from then on. Even my mom sounded gloomy on the phone.

And my work didn’t bring much joy either. The amount of hate mail I received grew steadily. I stopped opening those letters and deleted them outright, but their intensity and virulence spoke of the changing times, and no matter how much you tried to ignore it, it was still there – the shadow of a tsunami running to our shore.

One bright spot was Scott McKenna. He worked as a comment moderator on our site and his admiration for me was flattering and ridiculous, but quite real.

“That was so ballsy, man,” he whistled. “Like, really.”

“What, sitting in the lobby for five weeks?” I frowned.

Yes, he said, he couldn’t have done it. It was epic.

Then you didn’t want it enough, I told him, whatever it was you were pursuing, you simply didn’t want it enough.

Plus, what else could I have done? It was this or going back empty-handed. Though, even then nothing horrible would’ve happened to me, just a life I didn’t want, and no shame in it, happens to a lot of people. 

So I thought about Armand again, and again told myself that I need to get over it, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t interested, he had a girlfriend.

Well, I had a girlfriend, too, so it didn’t mean much…

Nah, stop it. Just stop it.

Armand was like a splinter in my toe. You could go for days without thinking about him, then he’d start hurting again. It was easier with girls, I decided. It was much easier. There, you at least know the rejection when you see it, here you know nothing and can deduce nothing, because you simply don’t know what to look for.

To hell with Armand.

To hell with…

And look, Brad is free now. This one could surely use some consoling. Pity about the kids, of course. I mean, six is a lot of baggage, but on the bright side – none of his I was currently dating, so the awkwardness will be reduced to acceptable levels.

Yeah, Brad looked good, so I tried to think about him, but he started morphing into Armand after a time, which pissed me off to no end, and I cursed them both for being handsome and desirable, but oh so vague and noncommittal.

Two “might have beens” are too much for any man. Depression was knocking but I refused to open the door - we, Chalamets, aren’t into it much, we are straight-to-the-bridge types. And ok, I could see myself plummeting into the Hudson over Armand - he was worth it, more or less; but the problem was that it wouldn’t be over Armand, it would be over that damn Estelle, and no, she wasn’t worth it at all. So I didn’t jump. Kept thinking about it, though.

Caro was sad too, but for different reasons. She is a New Yorker, and, well…

“Even fifteen years later, Septembers in New York still smell of ash,” she told me while we were walking around Lower Manhattan.

To me it was images on the screen, but she lived through it, she was there that day.

“It was the first time I saw grown-ups scared. All of them,” she said pensively. “I was at school, no one knew what to do, and you knew that they didn’t know, so in a way the childhood ended there, that day.”

Her mom came for her and they ran home. Liza was still Elizabeth and she was shaking, Armand’s phone wasn’t answering and they didn’t know where he was. That day, if you didn’t know, you _knew_, you couldn’t help thinking that you _knew._

People on the streets were crying, some of them collapsing in hysterics, and Caro started crying too, started asking about her “Daddy,” so her mother picked her up and continued running. But where? They didn’t know why they were running home, they didn’t know if home was safe.

“We reached our street, and then…” she paused. “Dad was there. And he was scared, too. I remember… When Mom saw him, she lost it, she couldn’t walk… He picked us up, both of us, and carried us to our apartment. I remember the stairs… I remember he was sweating. I thought he’d know what to do, but he didn’t,” she looked at me and sighed. “We’d watch the second tower collapse on CNN. Then the ash came. For days. Nothing but ash. Mom never felt the same about New York after that.

“But he brought me gummy bears, red,” she chuckled suddenly. “I remember that too. Amid all this craziness, my dad bought me gummy bears because he thought… I have no idea what he thought. That it’d reassure me? The things people do when they are scared… The world was ending, and my dad stopped to buy me sweets… They melted in my hand, turned it red. I remember…”

She looked at her palm, as if surprised to find it empty.

“Maybe that’s why I was so angry at him, later,” she said quietly.

“Because he bought you sweets?” I frowned.

“No, I don’t mean then. I mean, later, when they separated… I guess I was hoping he’d do it again, scoop us up and keep us together, and he didn’t… I asked him to try and make Mom stay…” she sighed. “He said no. And I couldn’t forgive him. For a long time.”

“Why didn’t you ask your mom?” I glanced at her. “Takes two to tango.”

“Maybe I knew it was useless,” she shrugged. “Mom isn’t that sort of woman…”

I didn’t know what she meant. Sentimental? Domestic? Manipulable?

Anyway, Caro told the judge that she wanted to stay with her mom, so Elizabeth packed two bags for them and took her on an odyssey from Florida to Montana – every two months a new city, a new school, a new guy who asked not to call him “Daddy,” please.

“I liked Austin,” Caro smiled, “but Mom got bored of it, too…”

After two years she packed her bag herself and told Elizabeth that she was going back to New York. They both knew it was better.

“I thought I missed Dad,” she bit her lip. “Well, I did, but… He wanted me to be a lawyer, and when Harvard accepted me, I was glad to say no. Because he wanted it, because I was still angry and didn’t know it.

“When I was in Paris, he called me and we met in Lisbon. He was reciting Pessoa, said it was the city of dreams and told me to come home, that no matter where I was, he was still my home, he and Mom, wherever she was. So I returned.”

“And became a paralegal,” I smiled.

“I was older,” she shrugged. “I knew now why he couldn’t make her stay.”

I think in her own eyes it was a defeat, to return to New York, both times. There was longing in her voice, she lacked that misfit spirit her mother possessed and knew it, and that’s why she was so angry with him for so long – they were more alike than she wanted to admit, both dreamers with a day job. Just like Pessoa.

So, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I closed my eyes and imagined him picking me up and running up the stairs, which thrilled and sickened me in equal measure, because I couldn’t say who was carrying me – a father or a lover.

But the more she talked, the closer he became to me, more familiar, more recognizable. I remembered his wintery eyes and thought that I knew the history behind them, or at least part of it. And I wanted to know more, wanted him to share it with me, his body, his life.

The fantasies I had then weren’t particularly graphic, but they were far from innocent. I dreamed about his hands, his big smooth palms, cupping my cheeks and gliding down, reading destiny on my skin. Many times I woke up still feeling the weight of another body on top of mine, and though it didn’t have a face, or I couldn’t remember it, I knew it was him and this knowledge haunted me during the day.

God, I thought, I’ll be fine if nothing happens between us, I just need to know that it’s happening to him too. I’ll be fine with just knowing. I don’t want to be alone with this weird thing. Even if we’re mutual “might have beens,” it’s still better than this constant doubt.

And when I’d wake up with Caro by my side, I wished desperately for it to stop, just stop, because it felt wrong and dirty, unspeakable in the truest sense of the word.

So, yes, it wasn’t the most optimistic of times. And then Hillary collapsed during 9/11 memorial.

I was watching it at my desk. The whole office became quiet. We saw her being carried to the van, our bright hope, suddenly just a 68-year-old woman, exhausted after a year of constant campaigning. No one knew what to say, but I’m pretty sure everyone thought, “Fuck, that’s it. They’ll crucify her now.”

I tried to look at it objectively. First of all, any other candidate in any other election, yeah, they’d be done after that. People forget words, rumors, descriptions, but the images, the images stay with us. They could forgive it to a woman, but they couldn’t forgive it to a future president. Anything, but this appalling weakness. If only it wasn’t caught on video, but it was… It was…

The saving grace was that it wasn’t just any election or any year, it was 2016 and the alternative was Donald Trump, the only man in America who could make people vote for Hillary, because they hated him even more.

Was it the moment when we lost? The watershed?

I don’t know. And I didn’t know then, but I was looking at her stumbling legs, at that shoe left lying on the sidewalk, and I felt pity for her, even knowing that it was the last thing I should be feeling about a potential president. I had no doubts that they both were taking something - you need superhuman stamina to survive a political campaign in America - but whatever Donald was on, it worked better.

Republicans would go wild with it, we knew. They’d been drumming up rumors about her health for months, and now there wouldn’t be any need for artfully cutting together images to prove a non-existent point – they had sticks before, that day they acquired a Gatling.

How could it happen? How the fuck was it allowed to happen? 

We were trying to convince people that a woman could deal with a tough job, and the woman we offered them had to be carried to her car, because she couldn’t walk…

She presented herself as someone who doesn’t need your pity, well, now she wasn’t going to get any sympathy either. People would forget that she’d been on the road for more than a year, they would forget the things she had to deal with during this time. Suddenly, everything we thought was resolved came back with a vengeance – Benghazi, private server, deleted emails, Julian Assange, her Iraq war vote, murder of Seth Rich, _Clinton Cash_, Whitewater scandal and Bill Clinton – a liability and a creep – but who still managed to look the more charismatic of the two.

I don’t know if we lost the election then, but we lost the independents, the folks still on the fence - because when Hillary fell, she kicked that fence down, too.

So, no wonder that next day Stanley gathered us in the conference room and gave us “this is war” speech. (He resembles Mark Strong a bit – channeling _Zero Dark Thirty _seemed appropriate, I guess.)

“Now, anyone here hasn’t watched the news lately?” he looked around. Everyone looked down. “Good,” he nodded. “No need to fuck around then. My next question is – what the fuck are you thinking? That we’ve won already? Anyone here thinks that?

“Wake the fuck up!” he slammed the table so forcefully, we all jumped. “We thought he’d never run, he did. We thought he’d never get past the first primary debate, he did. We thought he’d never beat Ted Cruz, he did. We thought he’d never get the nomination – he fucking did it, too! Wake the fuck up!

“Listen to me, and listen to me carefully, forget that masturbation bullshit you’ve been diddling with, forget puff pieces and “everything’s gonna be fine” crap. Forget it now! It’s not about the election anymore, forget the election, it’s about the Supreme Court. Capeesh?

“Anyone remembers Merrick Garland? First amendment, LGBT rights, religious freedoms, legal weed, women’s rights, abortion, Paris agreement, Obamacare? Anyone?

“Well, remember them fondly, because they are officially fucked right now, while you’re wasting alphabet on horseshit.

“Bring me my voters,” he growled. “Bring me heads. I want chicks, I want stoners, I want gays, I want Mexicans, I want Muslims, I want tree huggers – I want them all scared shitless right now. I want them all go and register to vote - make them. Make them!

“If anyone thinks I exaggerate, please raise your hands – and fuck off to obscurity! You’re fucking fired! Go write for _TMZ_! Go write for _Dogs Today_!” he looked around.

“No? Want to stay? Then, if you want to stay, get your asses out of the cushy chairs we bought you, put down your lattes and do your fucking job – bring me stories to publish!

“Bring. Me. Stories!”

He stopped talking, and everyone exhaled. My inner Jessica Chastain couldn’t contain herself any longer.

“Yes!” I stood up and fist-pumped the air. “Yes!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Stanley groaned. “Sit down!”

Did you notice that people who are into pathos are always embarrassed when you suddenly take them seriously? I mean…

“You see that?” Stanley’s nostrils flared. “Optimism! That’s our problem. Republicans don’t need optimism, they get by on winning elections - but it’s always sunny in _our_ fucking Philadelphia…”

Well, I sat. Then I got up because the meeting was over and everyone was leaving.

“You!” Stanley pointed at me and smiled evilly. “You write about Ivanka and her bags.”

“But it’s not political!” I protested.

“_Make it _political!”

I nodded, picked up my notepad and left, Ivanka and her bags the furthest thing from my mind.

(For the record, I’m fine with Ivanka. I think her predicament is quite hilarious. Imagine being suddenly declared the smartest one in your family. What would you do? Probably start quoting pseudo-zen nonsense, too. So, have some sympathy.)

Though, again, I wasn’t thinking about her at all at the moment, I was thinking about Armand. I gave up too soon, I realized. Stanley was right, we’d all become too complacent, including me.

So I left the meeting and went straight to Greta.

“What’s Random House publishing these days?” I leaned on her desk and asked pleasantly.

Her eyes narrowed. “How’s election going?”

“Point taken,” I nodded. “Do they have any releases in the next two-three weeks?”

She folded her arms and looked at me. I looked at her. She raised one eyebrow, I raised another. She turned to her computer and started typing. I waited.

“Here,” she pointed at the screen. I looked at the list of names, titles and dates.

“Who are the editors?” I asked.

We stared at each other for a moment again, she rolled her eyes and typed something else. A spreadsheet with more detailed information appeared. I went down the column – Bruggeman, Eubanks, McVeagh, Hammer, Pitlik, St…

Aha!

I ran my finger along the line and stumbled on _Butterfly Memories _by Vincent Borboleta, being released on September 30.

“Is it any good?” I turned to Greta.

She looked at the title and frowned. “I’ll write that it is.”

“Why?”

“Because Amazon gets 10 percent of its profit from book sales,” she rolled her eyes.

“I want it,” I told her. “You can write the review, but I need to go to this party. They’ll have some party, right?”

“And I want Justin Timberlake to go down on me,” she deadpanned. “Get lost.”

“What do you want?”

“What do you have?”

I went for my wallet. “Four _Starbucks_ coupons, discount for bike rentals, 40% off to whiskey festival, five _Walmart_ coupons,” I searched some more. “Zoo and bus tour,” I looked at her.

“Fuck off.”

I dug again. “95% off to Learn Linux course.”

“Not interested.”

“Greta,” I looked at her.

“They set a nice table usually, at Random,” she shook her head. “Good champagne. So, no.”

I went through everything I knew I had – nothing seemed particularly valuable. If I was into philosophy and shit, that would be the moment to realize that jumping off the bridge was an option. But I wasn’t.

“_Este__́__e Lauder_!” I remembered. “60% off, valid until the end of the year.”

I had it from my Lifestyle days, it was buried in one of my drawers because Caro refused when I tried to unload it on her.

“And _DKNY_,” I added, “I’m sure I have it, too.”

“60 percent?”

“Don’t remember.”

She pretended to think about it. “Deal,” she nodded finally.

“Give me the invite!” I demanded.

“First _Este__́__e Lauder_, then the invite.”

“Greta…”

“Bring me my moisturizers, and you’ll get the invite.” 

I ran back to my desk, turned it upside down, finally found that dusty coupon and returned to Greta.

“Here,” I presented it to her triumphantly.

She looked at it and nodded, then gave me a stack of printed pages. “First three chapters and press invite,” she thought for a second. “Ask him about the green pillow.”

“Green pillow?”

“It’s a symbol.”

“Of what?”

“Ask him that. I strongly suspect he ripped off Fitzgerald with his ‘green breast,’ but he’ll love that you noticed anyway.”

I didn’t give a fuck about the pillow, but the invite was there – pristine, waiting for my name to be written in the blank space.

Perfect.

Just perfect.

I sighed dreamily.

“What you up to, Timon?” Greta smirked.

“Hunting for my Pumbaa,” I winked at her. “Wish me luck.”

She did, and I went back to my Ivanka and her bags feeling unusually inspired, wrote 3k piece in five days, of which Stanley cut 80 percent, and in the evening started reading what Armand had edited.

It was far from Salman Rushdie, but not so bad you’d get a fatwa for it. Pillows were mentioned, some of them green. I thought I’d ask Armand about it, but casually, so as not to spook him.

“You like breasts, Mr. Hammer? I mean, pillows. No? Well, I’m rather ambivalent about them, too, lately.”

Caro, of course, knew nothing about my Machiavellian plans and I didn’t try to enlighten her. I prepared a dozen things I could say if she asked me later, all very innocent and spontaneous: “The girl who had to go got sick, so they sent me. I had no idea – no idea! – your father would be there. I mean, what a coincidence! Ah, small world…”

Another thing I prepared was my black jeans. I washed and dried them to the point I could barely breathe when I put them on, but that was the only shortcut to getting a noticeable ass I could think of. Oh, the stuff gay folks have to deal with…

Look, I think I’m reasonably smart, just not smart enough to not give a fuck about my ass. Know your limitations. Plus, as my father likes to say, let’s be realistic here – if Armand fell for me, it wouldn’t be for my brain. So I washed and I dried, and slowly September stopped looking so depressing.

This time, though, I curbed my enthusiasm to an appropriate level – if he didn’t jump me when I was in his apartment, I doubted he’d lose his head in public place. And, well, jeans or no jeans, I wasn’t endowed to tempt the saints. Still, I think I got to Estelle’s size, and that worked for him apparently.

Ah, my precious, you won’t know what hit you – relax, the journey from “maybe” to “already” takes three and a half minutes on average.

Then I looked at my ass again – no, we need a bigger boat to consummate this relationship, I had to admit. As it is, I don’t believe I’ll survive it completely unscathed.

Well, courage…

And lube.

But first of all, courage. Tons of it.

No, I don’t think I had any unrealistic expectations about our “chance” encounter. I look good in black, after all, and there wouldn’t be any Caro present, and I’d tell him what a brilliant editor he was, and that even a brilliant editor sometimes had to work with junk, and we’d bond over it, over junk, literary and in our pants.

It couldn’t be much more different than with girls. I refused to believe it. Of course, there were probably other signs here, but the whole hitting-it-off procedure, it couldn’t be that different.

I didn’t know how he got so deep under my skin and so fast, but he did. It was almost as bad as my crush on an English teacher in the 8th grade, and I still think it was reciprocated – my punctuation was never as good as my grades, so she must have felt something, she must have… And I needed him to feel that “something,” too. I needed to see that he felt it - then I could sleep easy, just knowing that he didn’t. 

How could Armand be straight? How? Just recently Grindr awarded New York the title of the gayest city in the union, and an editor, an editor is the gayest profession ever, am I right?

He couldn’t be straight. He had no right. It’d be an aberration. But if he wasn’t, then I was it for him and he had to see it. Someone had to open his eyes to the truth, and if you want something done well, you have to do it yourself, unfortunately; so I washed my jeans again, dried them and headed to East Village, telling Caro that I had to work late.

They rented a nice cafe on a ground floor, all big windows and bare-brick walls. I presented my invite and ID and was given a pencil with a crystal butterfly on its tip, which was supposed to impress me and didn’t, but almost immediately I spotted Armand, and _he_ did.

The guy who couldn’t be bothered to dress up for his fiftieth birthday cleaned up nicely for some Fitzgerald wannabe. I look good in black, most people look good in black if they can afford the right black, and Armand could, so _he_ did.

He was standing, champagne glass in hand, talking with some balding man, that almost smile on his lips, his hair almost golden in the soft evening light, tall, dark, handsome as sin, only ten feet away, almost mine…

My tight jeans became tighter suddenly.

You…

You, fabulous creature, you…

I felt like purring, getting my claws into him and purring…

Fuck _Fruit-fly Memories_.

Fuck Vincent and his pillows.

If Armand came here straight, it was time to come out. Come out and play. It was a book launch, but I don’t know how I stopped myself from launching and slamming him into that bare-brick wall he was standing at.

I took a glass, too, then another one, then got out my notepad and started aimlessly wandering in his direction.

“Mr. Hammer?” I looked at him surprised.

He was surprised, too, only for real.

“Timothée…” he frowned at me, then looked at the guy he was talking to. “Timothée Chalamet, from the _Post_. Wayne Vogel, _DLT Communications_,” he introduced us.

Wayne looked like a guy who loved some bullshit with his cocktail, so I didn’t deprive him, and we briefly talked about Hillary’s poll numbers and congratulated each other with winning the election in November. Meanwhile, I was thinking that Armand didn’t say a word about me being his daughter’s boyfriend, and I liked it, I liked it a lot.

When, finally, Vogel got out of breath and politely relieved us of his company and just before Armand could pull the same with me, I cornered him against that brick wall, very unintentionally and very firmly.

He saw the waiter passing us and took another glass, coughed and drank some. I waited until the guy was almost past me, then casually turned and reached for a glass, too, allowing Armand to appreciate all my drying and washing in the process.

I didn’t see any violent display of emotion when I looked at him, but well…

“How’s Caro?” he asked.

“Caro’s fine,” I nodded.

“Hm…”

I just loved him against that wall, just loved it. 

“So, that’s yours,” I waved the butterfly pencil. “The book.”

“You could say that,” he shrugged.

“I loved it,” I lied.

“Really?”

That was a delicate moment. I had no idea what he wanted to hear, few people want the truth, but if he was worth all the fuss, he’d be one of the few.

“No,” I replied. “No, I didn’t. I can’t stand people who feel the need to say ‘aubergine,’ when they mean ‘violet.’”

“So, the British,” he raised an eyebrow.

“The author is a Brit?”

“No,” he admitted. “He’s from Missouri.”

“Well, no aubergines there…”

“I thought you were writing about politics,” Armand cocked his head. “And dandruff…”

“Helping out a colleague,” I shrugged.

He looked in his glass, I looked at his Adam’s apple, leaked it mentally.

“How’s Caro?” he glanced at me.

Nervous? Oh, you should be.

“Caro’s fine,” I smiled. 

He raised his eyes and looked over my shoulder. “Excuse me, there is someone I wanted to talk to. If you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” I stepped away and let him go. “Nice seeing you.”

He nodded and left.

Gotcha! I thought. That was the thing that threw me off before, the eyes. I didn’t know… I didn’t know that his dining-room eyes _were _his bedroom eyes.

He’s toast, I drank my champagne and congratulated myself. Case closed. You can run, but you can’t hide, I’ll ferret you out of any hole, no matter how deep.

Such a sweet old man, so clueless…

Go mingle. The night is young.

In the meantime, I needed to find this Vincent from Missouri and ask him what ocean of meaning he intended to pour into his green pillows. He wasn’t difficult to find – follow the book stacks and you’ll find the author. I guess, he was right to keep by them, otherwise no one would know who he was.

In the end, I rather liked him. He seemed shy but friendly – a little less adverbs and purple prose and Armand could turn him into a voice. No Salman and light years away from Doctorow, but still a voice.

He told me he was from Missouri, “like Brad Pitt,” and I nodded sympathetically – another one who came to New York and started asking Google if he was gay.

Hear you, brother, hang on there. Just keep your hands away from the editor, otherwise – welcome to the club.

Then I saw a guy I knew from the _Atlantic,_ who didn’t even pretend he came here in pursuit of cultural enrichment and was quietly stuffing himself with appetizers, and thought he had it right - anyway, I got my answer: pillows meant home, forever lost. So I thanked Vincent, wished him success unprecedented and made my way there – to another Trump talk and grilled garlic shrimp.

I kept my eyes on Armand, of course. He mingled, I didn’t interfere. Drinking and eating was briefly interrupted by the author reading an excerpt from his oeuvre, which those who were already tipsy forgave him easily and those who weren’t used to get there. People applauded and returned to shrimp. One literary career was launched.

“What are you doing here?” I asked Travis.

He nodded towards the booze. “Just got back from Dakota, needed a break,” he sighed.

Dakota, of course, meant Dakota Access Pipeline and was another unfortunate Obama legacy that Hillary had to defend now.

“Think they’ll win?” I asked.

“If _she_ does,” he snorted. “Read this guy, Lichtman, he says it’ll be Trump…”

We looked at each other. He didn’t want any bullshit, and I felt tired of it, too.

“My folks are voting for him,” I admitted.

Someone laughed and the music changed. Travis grabbed another sandwich and raised his glass.

“Cheers, I guess,” he smiled sadly.

“Yeah,” I nodded, “cheers…”

And that’s how it was, 2016 - a lot of self-congratulations and a few inconvenient truths here and there. And the music played on…

Sometime around 9 I noticed that Armand was slowly migrating towards the exit and decided I couldn’t let it happen, not so easily. So I said my goodbyes and went for my coat. I passed him on my way out and he ignored me, which was fine, because otherwise I’d have to say goodbye to him too, and I wasn’t planning to.

From the street I watched him shaking hands with several people and smiling apologetically, evidently ready to leave.

Yeah, come here, my pretty, come to papa… It’s the end of September and papa is freezing on the sidewalk…

As soon as he opened the door, I came out of the shadows and ran into him, absolutely accidentally.

“Forgot my pencil,” I smiled and peered inside. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes, well…” his hands disappeared into his pockets and he looked down. I looked down, too. Someone came out of the door and we had to move.

“How about a drink?” I asked, as if it’d just crossed my mind.

He looked up. “A drink?”

No, I thought, I won’t help you here. Don’t expect me to convince you or anything. That’s on you. You know as well as I do that it’s an excuse, that we’ve just left an event with an open bar, that’s it’s late, that it’s Thursday, that I’m Caro’s boyfriend, not your drinking buddy, and that it’s the last thing you should be doing tonight. If you say yes, that’s on you, pal. You can never say that it wasn’t. 

He looked up and down the street, lifted his collar, stepped from foot to foot. I waited, it was cold but I could wait for as long as I had to. I remember I wasn’t even nervous, maybe because I knew what he’d say even before he said it.

“Well, why not? You know some place close?”

Of course, I knew some place, I scouted the neighborhood weeks ago.

“Just around the corner, there is a bar,” I smiled.

Gotcha, Mr. Hammer.

Gotcha.

And that’s how it happens. Always. With everyone, guys, girls, doesn’t matter. That’s how it happens. When it’s mutual, we find bullshit excuses to spend another five minutes with this person; and when it’s not, we find them not to.

We walked in silence, I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, trying to hide a smile. He looked ahead, his light brow slightly furrowed. I couldn’t see his eyes from that angle, but I didn’t need to. I didn’t need to know what he was thinking, because he was thinking that he shouldn’t have said it, that he should have laughed it off or pointed out the obvious, that he’d need to invent something to explain it to Caro, if she asked, but only if she asked…

Well, to tell the truth, I had a drink with my girlfriend’s father once, back in Otter’s. The circumstances were drastically different, though: Josh Donelson from the parallel street didn’t want to wait for a lineman, so he climbed the pole himself, stuck his hands somewhere they didn’t belong and received a 300 volt surprise from which he perished. We lived on a parallel street, and in Otter’s that’s like being a close relative, so we went to the wake, of course. And during that wake I bumped into the guy whose daughter I dated in high school. We looked at each other apprehensively, but he had a glass and I had a glass, and by then someone else had knocked up and married his little sunshine, so he said “cheers” and I replied “cheers” and then we realized where we were and also realized that we were there out of obligation, not any genuine grief, and that embarrassed us both so much we avoided each other for the rest of the day.

So, yeah, you could say I had some experience in drinking with my girlfriend’s father, but this here, with Armand, was very different.

Suddenly he stopped. I had a moment of panic. We were almost there, what now?

“You mind?” he asked and got a small lacquered cigarette case out of his inner pocket.

“You smoke?” I was surprised. I thought he was a health nut, what with his gym obsession and all.

“No,” he replied and lit up.

I believe smoking is bad. It’s a very unglamorous habit, I think no one should do it if they want to spend their 60th birthday on the right side of the grass.

No, no one should smoke. Except Armand Hammer.

I was watching his face momentarily illuminated by the lighter and saw that bliss you notice in people who’ve been quitting for the last twenty years.

“You quit until your next cigarette,” my dad once told me. And he knows, he’s had his twenty years war with nicotine, too.

But Jesus Christ…

Those lips, those long fingers, that face…

He threw his head back and blew out a stream of smoke into the night. “Don’t tell Caro,” he glanced at me.

I wasn’t sure what he meant. “No,” I swallowed, “no, I won’t tell Caro.”

I didn’t think he smoked often. He held his cigarette like a woman, with two fingers, but he made the most out of every drag. Was he feeling guilty? Was it about smoking? I couldn’t be sure, his face didn’t betray him in any way.

I watched his neck every time he let out another puff and I wanted to burrow my nose there, to drag my lips over every inch of that skin, to feel the air passing through his throat, to count his pulse. My every cell cried that it was unjust I couldn’t do it and had to stand by and watch. My hands rolled into fists inside my pockets, nails biting the palms.

That’s how it happens. Always.

First, you’re content with seeing, then only touch will do, and then one touch isn’t enough…

If right then, he grabbed my shoulders and dragged me into some alley, shoved my face into cold brick wall, squeezed my throat from behind to stop me from talking and asked if he could do anything to me, I’d cough, “Yes, anything. Anything…”

Let me be your anything, just never leave my life, because I’ve never felt this way about another human being, because I didn’t understand what wanting someone really meant, I didn’t know you could feel it in your toes, your hair roots, your retinas, this violent rapacious wanting, this thirst for someone’s lips.

I don’t remember when he finished, when we started walking again, but I remember that my shirt clang to my sweaty body when I was taking off my coat inside, and I was afraid he’d smell it, and for a second I wanted him to.

We sat at the end of the bar. The place was full by a Thursday night standards – groups of people here and there, but mostly guys in suits drinking alone. It was quiet. Tired bossa nova, tired lights, tired shoulders.

He ordered a shot of vodka, and I was tempted to ask for the same, but I don’t really like vodka and cringing like a teenager after his first guilty drink wasn’t the impression I needed, so I chose a beer.

He downed his in one swallow and was sitting looking down at the bar, tracing a line in the wood with his nail.

“Why don’t you write?” I asked.

He paused. “Because I’m better at making it better than at creating it,” he replied slowly.

“Have you ever tried?”

He turned his head slightly, but didn’t look at me. “Yes, long ago.”

“And?”

“It was… subpar.”

“That’s… unacceptable?” I asked quietly.

“It is.”

“What about Vincent?”

His lips moved, almost a smile, almost. “Vincent is engaged to the daughter of one of our board members,” he coughed. “But he has it. A couple more rewrites would’ve done it.”

“I don’t like editors,” I confessed. “I lost my best adjectives to them.”

“What _are_ your best adjectives?”

“Salubrious, contumacious, jejune…” I bit my lip. “Amatory. I once wrote ‘amatory attempts,’ it was crossed out.”

“Your editor was right,” he lips twitched.

Was he? I thought.

“It didn’t discourage me,” I told him and he finally looked at me. “I’m not easily discouraged.”

“I heard,” he said after a pause. “Did you want New York so much?”

“I wanted the _Post _so much. New York… New York was just a place.”

“Why then?”

“Because I read that if you could make it here, you could make it anywhere,” I shrugged. “So, why try anywhere else?”

“But you love it?” he signaled for another drink.

“No,” I shook my head, “I just want to live here.”

He frowned. “I never lived in a small town…”

“It’s not as bad as you imagine, just dull. But it’s safe… It’s…” I thought for a second. “In New York – you fall and you break, and people step over the pieces and keep walking. In Otter’s… we know how to forgive each other there.”

The glass in his hand caught the light and blinked. “What about unforgivable things?”

I looked at his lips, the line of his nose, that black signet ring on his finger. “I think,” I said slowly, “I think there are very few such things in life.”

He turned and we looked at each other silently, and we knew. It’s that simple, we knew.

“It’s getting late,” he glanced at his watch. “I should be going.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

Yes, you should be. But it’s late.

I still had half of my beer left, so I said I’d stay and finish it.

“Armand,” I called after him. He stopped and turned to look at me. “Did you like the gloves?”

He almost smiled, almost. “Yes. Yes, I loved the gloves.”

I spent another half an hour there, ordered a second beer, thought about him, about my parents, about those unforgivable things that tear families apart.

And later, when I’d talk to Caro, I’d realize he never told her about meeting me that day. It was no longer my secret, it was ours.

That’s how it happens. Always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, and "I hope I've earned the privilege of your time."


	6. Chapter 6

It’d be easy to conclude that that was the end of us, me and Caro, that Armand appeared and from then on we were doomed. Yes, it’d be easy to say that. Easy and wrong.

First of all, he didn’t do anything to sabotage our relationship. Second, even if he tried, he wouldn’t have achieved much, because only the people in the relationship can ruin that relationship, and blaming someone else is deluding yourself. And third, I didn’t love him then and he didn’t love me.

Yes, we had this _thing_ between us, and it was a weird thing that we had, intense and weird, but it wasn’t love and I didn’t try to pretend otherwise. We were attracted to each other, true, but it’s not like I lost all power of critical thinking as soon as I realized I could physically want another man.

By October I promoted him to my official crush, and people have crushes all the time, single and married people. For example, my dad has been crushing – and hard – on Sigourney Weaver since the 70s, when the first _Alien _was released. So what? Nothing much came out of it. Still married to my mom. Sigourney comes and goes into our living room in her underwear, with her gun and her cat, and Dad sighs contentedly, and Mom rolls her eyes, and life goes on.

I’m not sure what I would’ve done if Armand suddenly appeared in his underwear in front of me, but I doubt it would’ve been enough to end my love for Caro just like that.

Because it doesn’t happen just like that, love dies a slow death and in shadows, it’s the end that takes us by surprise, that moment when you look at the person and know – for the first time and unmistakably – know that you don’t love them anymore. And only years later you can begin to understand how and why it happened. 

How did it happen to us, me and Caro? When did it start?

We were great together in July, we needed each other in August and we still considered each other’s quirks charming in September.

October then?

Maybe.

Maybe it started in October, but even then it had nothing to do with Armand.

Don’t fall into this trap. You often hear, “Ah, that bitch, she stole my man!” Honey, how old is your man? Thirty-five? Then he is hardly a sweet innocent boy whom a strange woman in the supermarket can take by the hand and lead to an unmarked van. He made a decision, one day and for whatever reason he made a decision to sleep with someone who wasn’t his wife, and that’s it. And yes, she might be a bitch, that woman, but it has nothing to do with the end of your marriage.

So, no. I had my secret crush, weird or not, but I loved my girlfriend, I could still look at her and see all those things that made me stop that first day by her desk and start fishing for her phone number. Caro is a remarkable girl, honest, passionate, loyal, gentle. If we lost each other, it was because we stopped trying, because it became easier to fight than to listen, easier to assume than ask and wait for to the answer.

She became suspicious of me, that’s what happened. And, ironically, it wasn’t over a possible infidelity, it had to do with politics.

Sounds crazy? Well, it is. Parties and all that brouhaha have all always been so much noise to an average person, but 2016 wasn’t an average year, an average choice, average stakes.

“Systemic racism,” “social atomization,” “food insecurity,” “polarization”… You read these neat words, and it’s so easy to forget that there are universes contained in them – thousands of ordinary people whose pain isn’t as neat or orderly.

And no, I don’t blame Trump, either. Everyone blames him for everything these days… But I don’t, what’s the point? Still, even saying that, I feel the need to clarify that no, I don’t support him, I didn’t vote for him, I didn’t want him to win, and that here is the problem, this automatic reaction, this hurry to apologize, to explain, to prove my loyalty – it becomes so exhausting over time.

I guess my original sin was that I simply didn’t hate him enough. I didn’t have this white-knuckled visceral response to everything he said and did that a lot of New Yorkers have. But they have a history with him, and I didn’t. Though, in truth, Caro didn’t have it either, because that third or fourth bankruptcy that ended his real estate reign in the city had happened before she was even born. 

Still, that “small town” remark of hers, it wasn’t accidental, and it’d come back and brick by small brick erect a wall between us that neither wanted to scale or demolish after a while.

She didn’t know that my parents were voting for him, but she suspected it and I was too distracted, too caught up with my Armand infatuation to find the time for a meaningful conversation about it with her.

No, scratch that. That’s not true. I could’ve found the time. Of course, I could’ve. It was easier to keep quiet, that’s all.

Frankly, I didn’t discuss it much with my parents, either. I asked Mom once, and she said she believed Trump would do something about opioid crisis, that because he didn’t drink or smoke and his brother died from alcoholism, it was personal with him, he’d at least try. And with fentanyl addiction and rate of opioid-related deaths growing steadily and surpassing the national average, you could say it was personal for Michigan, too, and for my mom.

And my dad? Well, he heard that Donald wasn’t planning to engage in “stupid wars,” and that was enough for him. After Obama tried and couldn’t get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and especially after what his administration did with Libya, after that Hillary’s chilling laughter and “we came, we saw, he died,” he said he simply couldn’t vote for “this woman.”

But I didn’t know how to explain it to Caro. How could I explain to her that my mom didn’t hate Mexicans, that my father wasn’t all gung-ho for waterboarding, that they weren’t a couple of Bible-thumpers who greeted Donald as the next Messiah?

Everything slowly became suspicious – that my father hunted and supported Second Amendment; that my mom never heard of Roxane Gay, but read _Twilight _and loved it; that I didn’t find Beyoncé “exceptionally” beautiful…

You see, with infidelity… with infidelity, you can prove it. You can check their phone, ask around, hire a detective, whatever – but how can you be sure about voting? How can you know for certain what this or that person did in the voting booth? It’s brief and leaves no traces, so you can only trust them, when they tell you that they pressed the button they promised. 

You can only trust, and Caro stopped trusting me.

I don’t know if Hillary’s fall on 9/11 was a watershed for the election, but I can see that October 9 was the watershed for us.

It was the second presidential debate. St. Louis, Missouri. Two days earlier my office almost had a spontaneous collective orgasm, when we discovered Trump’s _Access Hollywood_ tape and thought, yeah, now you’re done, motherfucker; then Donald scowled and swung back, bringing four Clinton accusers to the debate with him.

Bill attended, too. It was macabre. The whole spectacle reeked of Bannon. It was the country we’d become, and no one knew if the nausea would ever stop.

Caro and I had a fight. Again.

“I don’t know how you can vote for either of them now…” That was all I said, but that was enough. She was sick of what she saw, too, and she was scared, I suppose, so she lashed out at me.

“Just admit that you hate her and be done,” Caro sprang from the couch. “I’m so tired of this, Tim… Just be fucking honest for once!”

“I don’t hate her… I… Caro!”

“Oh, please… You never say anything good about her. It’s written all over your face… Every time, Hillary this, Hillary that… Look at your boy, feeling proud?”

“My boy?” I got up and faced her. “I don’t like Trump, Jesus…”

“Oh, come on! You think I don’t know? Every time… You think I don’t know that… how you look at my friends… how… you laugh at us, you think we’re ridiculous!”

I shook my head. “Well, some of your friends are ridiculous…”

“Yes, and he,” she pointed to the TV, “he is better, of course. He’ll put us in our place, finally!”

“You’re losing it… Caro,” I took a step towards her and she averted her eyes, “Caro, look at me. You can’t seriously believe that I’m some crazy right-winger… It’s preposterous…”

“You don’t want her to win, Tim,” she looked at me sadly. “Don’t lie. Don’t lie to me.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out noisily. “I wish it were someone else on our ticket, that’s true. But… it doesn’t mean that I’ll vote for _him_.”

We faced each other, separated by the TV: 30-something inches and suddenly several states between us. I thought, she’d smile and stretch her hand to me, let me hold her. She didn’t.

“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” Hillary said from the screen.

Applause started…

“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump quipped, and won the night, undoing all her careful preparation.

There were gasps.

Caro closed her eyes, and her face moved in pain. “I don’t want you to stay over tonight,” she said quietly.

“Ok,” I sighed. “Ok.”

It’d seem silly, I know, to a lot of people it’d seem silly that we were fighting over this crap, that we were losing each other because some woman in a pantsuit and a guy with orange tan had turned the country upside down with their ambitions. But everything seems silly while it happens to someone else.

Next day I bought a small bouquet of violets, went to Caro’s office and made her laugh, introducing myself as Carl Bernstein and inviting her on a date in an unlit garage.

We patched it up. We both still had it in us to fight for this relationship. There was still love, but again I asked myself, “What if he wins? What the fuck will we do then?”

We won another battle, but it seemed more and more unlikely that we’d win the war, because I could make her laugh every day of the week and it still wouldn’t have solved the real problem – she couldn’t trust me. At some point somewhere I lost it, her trust in me, and I didn’t know how to get it back.

And of course, now there was Armand, too.

I wanted to see him again. Preferably alone, preferably in some hotel, definitely soon.

How to achieve it, I had no idea. I studied their release schedule at Random and found that his next book would come out in February. That was too far away. But even if he had something else planned for next week, I couldn’t pop up there again and expect a warm welcome.

That was the most difficult part of this whole affair – if I started aggressively pursuing him, I’d lose not only Caro but my teeth, too, because Armand would knock me on my ass, and he’d be right.

I didn’t know his views on cheating, but his feelings towards his daughter were pretty clear – he loved her. He loved her, and no universe existed in which he’d get involved with someone she was dating behind her back. Even my lust filled brain could discern it.

My views on cheating… It’s worse than smoking and pornography taken together. And not that I’m trying to defend myself – well, ok, maybe I am – but I’d never cheated on anyone until that point. Sure, I looked and I have eyes and well, there are a lot of sexy people around, but somehow I managed to stay faithful through all of my dating history. Granted, it was much easier to do in Otter’s, where the opportunities started and ended with your high school, and, you know, in a town with 400+ people, schools aren’t overcrowded, but even in my precious MIT I kept to a strict diet of one girlfriend at a time.

And now I really craved some night snacks…

Armand, though, seemed as cold and forbidding as the fridge in a diabetic’s house.

What to do, what to do…

Don’t forsake the Bible, kids. There are some useful things to pick up there, especially if you’re hell-bent on fornication.

Psalm 7:15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.

Oh, how he’s fallen…

As I said, I wanted to see Armand. I really, really wanted to see Armand. So I wrecked my brain to find a way and finally decided on a double-date maneuver, and as soon as I decided I started pestering Caro. Of course, I tried not to be obvious about it, but after my third attempt she took notice.

Now, you can’t blame Caro – I didn’t – if _my _girlfriend began talking about a double date and mentioned my parents, never would I imagine that she actually wanted to go on a double date _with my parents. _So I talked, and Caro listened, and then got me my date… with Finn.

This poor schmuck got in our amorous crosshairs accidentally, I must say. Collateral damage, so to speak. You see, I wanted Armand, and Caro, plagued by her suspicions, wanted to see how homophobic I was – it was almost funny in its absurdity.

“Why the face?” she asked triumphantly, after telling me what was ahead.

“Nothing,” I shrugged. “I’m dying to see Finn.”

“And his boyfriend,” her eyes twinkled.

“Yeah, him too.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t like him,” her eyes narrowed.

“You wanted to sleep with him!” I remembered.

That pacified her some – women rarely forgive jealousy and never forgive its absence, and all that.

In reality, Finn didn’t bother me in the slightest. I treated him as my mom treated Sigourney – to quote the greats, “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.” So, me and Finn, we coexisted and pretty successfully, mainly through not giving a fuck about each other.

Yes, it didn’t fill me with joy that my girlfriend used to pine for that ass, but if you saw the way Finn looked at his boyfriend, you’d know that even if Caro was the last woman on earth, he wouldn’t be a threat to you.

And so we went. The boyfriend’s name was Zachary, he was half or quarter Filipino, outrageously cute and worked as a dog hairdresser. On hearing that, I thought that my dad would’ve sent him to the gay brigade without reading any further. It had nothing to do with the Philippines, just with the long period in American cinema and TV history during which every obligatory gay friend was a hairdresser or a clay artist, and all his skills couldn’t help him make it to the end credits.

To tell the truth, it wasn’t a total waste of time. Yes, we went through the motions and competed in insulting Trump for a while, which got tedious long before the dessert arrived, but Zachary was a genuinely nice guy and entertained us with stories of his clients and their owners, and I spent a lot of time looking at his and Finn’s joined hands on the table, thinking what it was like to hold Armand’s hand and how could I possibly convince him to do it. I had to admit my chances were slim – grown-ups hold hands if they are lovers or while forming a human chain, and Armand didn’t seem like a guy who was into human chains much…

I guess I spaced out, because I don’t really remember how or why we started talking about MCU and Avengers. I was asked about my favorite and was going to say that I simply liked Robert Downey Jr., but instead opened my mouth and said, “Thor.”

Mentally, I erased that Hemsworth guy from the picture and inserted Armand, then I erased Natalie Portman, too…

Oh, we looked glorious…

Unbeatable…

“Yeah,” I sighed. “God of hammer…”

“Thunder,” Finn snickered.

I looked around, stopped on Caro, she had that by now familiar “you alright?” expression on her face.

“DC guy?” Zachary asked.

Our cheesecakes arrived, and thank god for them, because I was freaking out right then and needed some privacy.

Houston, we have a problem – the captain is hallucinating…

What next?

Well, next was the night with Caro - and I’d go from homophobe to god knows what, if I called her by her father’s name…

I needed to see him. It was two weeks since our bar tête-à-tête, and withdrawal was producing frightening side effects. I needed to see him.

Ironically, I had his number. Caro once called me from his phone, long before I actually met him, and I saved it without thinking twice. Now it sat there – “Caro’s dad” - precious, but useless information because I couldn’t use it.

I remembered the way he looked at me in that bar – and I may be from a small town and have no romantic experience with guys, but I knew what was in that look: my washing and drying weren’t in vain, my ass had been noticed and appreciated. And he knew that I knew, and that’s why I couldn’t call him. Not without a very, very good excuse.

If only Caro wasn’t his daughter…

If Caro wasn’t his daughter, I’d start thinking how to break up with her, I realized for the first time. I still loved her… Yes, but… If I could get him by leaving her, I would. That was a dangerous thought, and it was only a step away from another one, even more dangerous – that only by having her could I have him.

It’s unpleasant to admit that already in October I was thinking about it.

Was it what they called a “double bind?”

_Every way you look at it, you lose…_

I didn’t love him then, he was just a crush, a wish, a whim, and yet… and yet…

He must be in hell right now, I thought then. If that’s what I’m going through, I can’t imagine being him.

But, fuck, I need to see him. Talk to him. Anything.

Let me be your anything.

Come on, Armand! Come on! I can’t do it all by myself, think of something. Think of something, before I called you with my only excuse being that I’m fucking dying here, dreaming of your hands and Lisbon; before I called her by your name; before I stopped caring about consequences…

Think of something, you must be good at smashing through the filler to get to the interesting parts. Take your red pen, or whatever it is you use, and cut all the crap – you want me and I want you, that’s the story, and the plot, and the theme. Isn’t it _subpar _when the second act is sagging under all the unnecessary details, like you’re fifty, like I’m Caro’s boyfriend, like we can’t? Isn’t it painful when there are more adjectives than actions and aren’t best stories written in their authors’ blood?

Last night I saw you on your knees, and it burned me to a crisp. Let’s not pretend – you smelled the fire: I’ve spent these weeks on every street in hell, and oh my love, I know I glimpsed you there.

Come on, Armand! Come on!

I miss you. I miss you dreadfully.

Well…

Ask, and it shall be given you… (Matthew 7:7)

Three days later he called Caro and invited us for dinner at his apartment. I wasn’t surprised, I wasn’t surprised at all. I even faked reluctance – another dinner with your father? must we? 

Caro thought so. She liked Estelle. And I decided I’d take Armand even with Estelle – like a Ferrari with fucked AC: yeah, you’ll be sweating, but better in a Ferrari than in a Kia. And if he pinched my ass on the sly, I promised myself I’d even warm up to this chick – victors can be generous.

He didn’t even bother to invent an excuse this time, as far as I could tell. And there was none, apart from the fact that he probably got tired of jerking off to the memories of my denim-clad ass and needed some new material. I considered obliging, then went through my sartorial repertoire and told myself we needed some spirituality added to this mess – I was a beauty on the inside, too, and now that he was hooked, it was safe to slow down on the makeup.

So it was again jeans, but not so snug, and a Coldplay t-shirt, which had seen significantly better days before it got to Caro, who knew about sorting laundry even less than I did, and now Chris Martin’s face looked as green as my girlfriend’s sweats. Or maybe he still suffered from that “conscious uncoupling” with Gwyneth. Who knows?

Anyway, there’s beauty on the inside, too. I was a great conversationalist, knew some card tricks and could name all _vice_ presidents, forwards and backwards, in the age when people got really upset when you told them that Garfield was assassinated and would ask what episode it was. But, in case my charisma didn’t cut it, I still had my ass and enough psychological resilience to get over the fact that he probably didn’t invite me for my face.

I mean… It’s not like I was dreaming about having tea with him, either, so…

No, inner beauty is important, but… Look, we were on the same page here, ok? The less I put on, the happier he’d be. Men are simple creatures…

In short, we went. The weather was rotten, we’d binged everything of worth that Netflix had to offer and we both missed her father – all good reasons to waste a Friday evening on Armand.

The emperor met us barefoot. That I remember very clearly – his toes peeking from under his jeans. It was the first thing I noticed, when he opened the door, because my eyes were lowered. Then my gaze traveled up and I saw soft black sweater and icy blue eyes. The bastard looked good in black, and he knew it, and he knew that I knew that he knew it. A quick glance at his smug face was enough to determine all this, as well as the fact that he missed me.

“Timothée,” he nodded, while helping Caro with her coat.

“Mr. Hammer.”

“You can call me…”

“I will,” I cut him off and gave him my jacket.

“We brought coconut bread,” Caro chimed in.

Yep, we did. And we had to join the waitlist to get it, after which I was sent to pick it up and spent 20 minutes convincing them to give this damn bread to me, even though the order was in Caro’s name, and was late for work as a result, but you couldn’t show up at Armand’s door with some lame baguette, I guess. He seemed pleased on seeing the box, though, so maybe it was worth it.

Estelle appeared, embraced Caro and kissed her on both cheeks, but didn’t look ecstatic when she spotted me, which cheered me up immediately.

We were again invited to the dining room, where the table had already been set. Armand didn’t grace us with his specialty dish this time. He had someone who came and cooked for him, and so there was plenty to choose from, all super healthy and plant-based and posh. I spent some time trying to find an angle at which I could observe his feet under the table - I really wanted to observe them, they were remarkable – but soon gave up and had to be content with just the food. 

Conversation didn’t really flow. Not at first. Estelle told us that she’d recently discovered reiki, and it was the only thing that helped her deal with the stress these days. She highly recommended it. I asked what it was, and she sighed – mentally – my ignorance was very exhausting, I could tell. Well, it was just a healing technique involving life energy and palms.

“Not the trees,” she added specifically for me.

I looked at Armand’s. I couldn’t imagine what this woman was so stressed about that his palms couldn’t heal. I thought I’d live longer just because I knew they existed. And if he laid them on me, death was officially cancelled, that’s for sure. But Estelle was struggling to find her center in the grotesque absurdity of our times…

Ok, she didn’t say exactly _that_, but I was still offended for my man – he looked pretty therapeutic to me: enough to lead a harmonious existence with _that _butt at arm’s reach.

New York women are spoiled. Simple pleasures are best. It took me two weeks to convince Caro that cunnilingus worked better than tai chi; and I was right - don’t remember her ever returning from one of her classes similarly refreshed and chirpy. We, people from fly-over states, we possess the wisdom of the centuries and we’re eager to share. So, don’t fly over, come visit.

At that I looked at Armand. He sensed it and looked back. Everything was well in the world.

We almost got to that bread - because bread is dessert in these parts – and no one mentioned Trump, so everyone felt slightly guilty. God forbid, we could eat without adding Donald to the menu. So Caro, her civic consciousness as alert as ever, took it upon herself to bring him up.

The trouble with talking about him those days had to do with that pussy tape that my publication had unearthed and that many believed was the ultimate silver bullet that would kill this Teflon Don once and for all. But due to the contents of that recording, it was very difficult to discuss it around a dinner table. It was almost as bad as 1998, when children across the nation suddenly started asking moms and pops what “oral sex” was.

I knew how extensive Caro’s vocabulary was, but I also knew that no amount of rightful indignation could make her utter the word “pussy” around her father. Personally, I didn’t think it’d shock Armand into a coma, but you never know with these things – maybe he was a hypocrite.

So we had to dance around it for a while. It was outrageous and unacceptable and vile, and American people would never stand for it, of course.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said, following Caro’s words. “People are different…”

“Decent people are the same,” she turned to me.

“Decent like Bill Clinton?”

“There, it was consensual,” Estelle glared at me.

(2016, everyone.)

“Maybe, but it was unacceptable and outrageous, and most people were still against impeachment,” I pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter,” Caro waved me off. “Trump never had a chance, and now he has even less.”

“He’s double digits behind her,” Armand added.

I didn’t want to get into that, but I felt like I needed to. They weren’t stupid people, any of them, but they lived in a bubble, too. They knew New York, and sure, New York would never go for Trump, but the country was bigger than New York, more diverse than California, angrier than Texas.

“Look,” I said, “a couple weeks ago, one of our guys worked on a piece about closeted trumpists: those people who are going to vote for him, but they don’t admit it publicly. Even their family doesn’t know. So he gave his email and asked the readers to write to him with their stories,” I paused. “He got three thousand letters in two hours. People lie, even to pollsters.”

_There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne…_

There was silence. I looked around, they all stared at me. It was as if I raised a toast to Hitler at someone’s bar mitzvah. 

“Yes, people lie,” Caro said quietly.

Oh, fuck me…

Fuck. Me.

“Look,” I said again, “all I’m saying is… Well, you say he has no chance, but… he has a chance. Still. Even after that pussy tape.”

My female audience wasn’t pleased. Armand actually smirked, but immediately covered it up with, “So, how about that bread?”

Everyone agreed it was time, and we moved to the living room, where Caro and I were seated on that same sofa I previously designated as a place for my potential future deflowering.

We kept away from politics. Instead Estelle talked about _The Birth of a Nation. _Yeah, no, not _that_ one. The one that had just been released. Its director was mired in controversy over a sexual assault he was accused of in college, so the movie that was a “brilliant” and “galvanizing” statement in January, had turned into an embarrassment for everyone involved by October. They didn’t handle the publicity right, she said. Pity.

(A year later we’d bend over backwards, trying to explain how the “timeless” and “groundbreaking” movies, produced by Harvey, were “timeless” and “groundbreaking” in spite and not because of him. Funny. Right?)

The bread was good. Armand was still barefoot, and I could observe unencumbered by the table.

Toes, I decided, were very stimulating. Very. I didn’t know why I had neglected them for twenty-five years – they had so many uses…

Every time he wiggled them, something in me wiggled, too.

Ahhh…

Girls started talking about girly stuff, which included cheating, _Lemonade _and police brutality. Armand and I ate the bread and looked at each other.

“You have more?” Caro asked, nodding towards the teapot, still breathing with some pleasant aroma.

“I can _make_ more,” Armand smiled.

“Please,” she bit her lip.

He nodded and stood up, picking up the teapot and heading towards the kitchen.

He was a man of many talents, my Armand. He could serve you tea, too. And I wasn’t crazy about tea, but this one I liked. And I also liked that he was now alone there and definitely needed my company.

I quietly excused myself and went to the bathroom. Caro didn’t give a damn, but Estelle noticed. She was no fool, that woman, I can’t deny that.

It was just awfully convenient that I didn’t have to pass the living room on my way back and could turn to the kitchen unobserved. I love these classic six apartments – there is room for maneuver.

He was standing by the stove, his back to me, and I spent a moment savoring his ass and shoulders, both were exquisite. If _this_ Mr. Rochester lost his face to the fire, I knew I’d still love him. Janey had it right.

“Need help?” I cleared my throat. It wouldn’t feel right if he turned and caught me ogling him. He wouldn’t like it, I was sure of it.

He glanced over his exquisite shoulder and something flickered in his eyes. (I’m sure it did, it always does in stories like ours.)

“No, it’s fine,” he replied.

I waited for a polite fuck off, but it didn’t follow, so I approached and stopped, leaning on the kitchen island. “So… what’s up?”

He adjusted the flame under the kettle, then turned and came up, standing at an angle from me. “I don’t know,” he smiled. “What do Gen Zs reply to that?”

“No idea,” I shrugged. “I’m not Gen Z.”

“What are you?”

“Millennial,” I smiled. “The worst thing that’s happened to this country since Great Recession.” Then added, “I’ll be twenty-five in December.”

His eyes traveled from my face to my t-shirt, stayed there for a while – I’m pretty sure his brain was screaming that I was the last creature on earth he should have a hard-on for, but brains are rarely consulted in such matters.

“That’s not much,” he offered.

“That depends,” I smirked.

The corner of his lips moved. “True.”

It didn’t sound particularly provocative, it just felt this way. Suddenly I was hot all over, didn’t know what to do – didn’t know what he’d do.

_Whatever you want… I won’t make a sound… I won’t tell a soul…_

He was watching me, didn’t say anything else, just watched me.

“What is it?” I asked a bit breathlessly, meaning everything, meaning how the hell it was possible he could do this to me.

He didn’t move his eyes. “Jasmine.”

“Jasmine?”

“Tea.”

“Oh… I’ve never tried it before,” I whispered.

Some thought passed over his face that I didn’t have time to read, slowly he raised his hand, turned it palm up and opened. There were dried white petals.

I swallowed. I remember I felt the room shrinking, the world collapsing into this outstretched hand, full of jasmine. There are moments… There are moments that define your life, sometimes you catch them, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it takes years to go back and understand, there it was.

The snake, the apple…

Did she know? Of course, she knew. She saw paradise turning into dust, countless generations scattering like pearls and drowning in time, unblemished until then flesh cursed with age and decrepitude, glimpse of freedom for centuries of tears…

The worst offer you can’t refuse is the one that you don’t want to.

She knew. But did the snake know? Did it understand what it was giving?

I lowered my head and smelled those petals. My nose grazed his skin, and I heard his breath catching. When I looked up, he was watching me steadily, his lips, paler than usual, slightly open. Cards on the table, I decided, dove back and kissed his palm.

“I wasted my life with coffee,” I said straightening and tried but couldn’t smile.

He was looking at his hand. “You’re not yet twenty-five,” he said quietly. “You haven’t wasted anything.”

“You’re only fifty,” I replied. “That’s not much.”

“That depends,” he raised his head and was looking at me.

“Soooo… the gentlemen retired for cigars and brandy?” Caro laughed, entering the kitchen. The foreign sound collided with our silence and made magic disappear. “Dude, where’s my car?” she whined and hugged me from behind, chin on my shoulder and arms locking around my waist.

“It’s coming, Your Majesty,” Armand chuckled, checking the simmering kettle.

It was as if some heavenly editor got bored and cut the scene before it ended. Though, maybe he knew better, maybe everything was already said.

“I really like her, Dad,” Caro’s breath on my cheek made me shiver. “Estelle. She’s very nice.”

Their eyes met, and he nodded. “Good.”

He threw the petals into the teapot and poured boiling water over it. Jasmine gasped soundlessly, and there were tears on the glass, or maybe just condensed vapor.

“I didn’t see Mom’s painting…”

“It’s in your room,” he turned back to us, his eyes lingering for a moment on Caro’s arms around me. “I wouldn’t throw it away, Cara.”

She nodded, her chin pecking my shoulder. “I miss her,” she shrugged.

“I know,” his eyes softened.

It was a quiet family moment. I shouldn’t have been there, but I was family, too, now, and it didn’t feel the way it should have. I was sad suddenly, not ashamed, just sad.

I’m going to fall in love with you, I thought, watching the scalded jasmine swirling in the water. I will probably love you the way I’ve never loved before, soul-deep and soul-crushing. And you, who can’t even look at her hands in mine, you’ll pay for every kiss that doesn’t reach your lips. I hope, in your fifty years, you’ve saved enough to afford it.

It became clear to me then that I would lose them both or I would keep them both, and neither scenario smelled like victory, just jungle on fire. But by that October, it really seemed like we ran out of good choices.

Estelle joined us, and no, I couldn’t look at his hand in hers, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you. The fact that someone is willing to read it makes all the difference in the world.


	7. Chapter 7

Last days of October… Waltz and champagne, caviar and diamonds, island of light in the night Atlantic – the iceberg is already there, waiting to strike and slice the steel like butter, but all the collars are starched and blinding and tightly corseted waists are a hair’s breadth away from perfection. The laughter, just a bit smug, still so careless, bounces of Bohemian crystal, tinkles, floats. We were in for some rough awakening, and we didn’t know it. Even the guys on the lookout, like me, didn’t see it coming.

It’s tempting to picture myself as some tragic omniscient Cassandra, running around the city, trying to raise the alarm, but that wouldn’t be the truth. As I said, I missed it, like everyone else.

Yes, I had my doubts, but I really thought she’d make it. She had everything going for her – public support, establishment backing, money. My single correct prediction was that it wouldn’t be a landslide victory for anyone. And it wasn’t.

The main thing I remember is being tired by then, exhausted after months of this campaign. And I believe I wasn’t the only one. It started out so differently, with so much enthusiasm and hope, but somewhere along the way we tarnished it beyond recognition, both sides. We turned it into a circus, and neither clown could produce a real laugh out of the audience by the end.

I remember 2008, my parents voting for Obama. There was joy there, there was pride – with all the sins in our national history, we still strove to do better, and Barack was this better, a step forward, a small victory.

“He is smarter than me, and that’s as it should be,” I remember my father saying.

It was a historical moment, and his figure suited it – bright, honest, young, strong. It was a privilege and a pleasure to vote for him, it made you feel better about yourself, as it should. But in 2016, my first time participating in the presidential election, the feelings were quite different, and I carried part of the blame.

My print media was still dying, but the agony was spectacular. Recent polls showed that most people got their news from Facebook, we’d been losing subscribers left and right and in the age of cord-cutting had to compete with _Breitbart_, countless YouTubers and guys like Alex Jones. We needed the readers, and the readers didn’t want to be bored, so we compromised and compromised and compromised to the point where Trump’s Twitter pronouncements started appearing on first page above the fold.

It was a deal with the devil, and few could resist signing it. He had us, he had us by the balls there, because, if anything, Donald knew one thing - the show must go on, no matter what. He implied that Megyn Kelly was menstruating while questioning him? We had to say something about that. He insulted McCain? We needed to provide a commentary. He announced a Muslim ban, even though he had no authority to do so? We were expected to protest.

He wanted to be front and center in every living room and coffee shop from Florida to Hawaii… and we gave him that. We were outraged so much and so often, we started getting our readers back, because bull fighting gets the highest ratings when the matador starts bleeding.

So, a gentleman from Georgia declared that he wouldn’t vote for Hillary, because she probably didn’t shave her armpits; and _Breitbart_ made a story out of that.

What did we do? Well, we wrote that Donald’s hands were too small, and you know… Don’t believe us? Remember that naked statue in the Central Park? No huge dick detected.

Were we ashamed? Yes. But we couldn’t stop. The ratings were too good. 

The sad truth is that you don’t need to be smart, exceptional or important to get a headline. You just need to be loud and new. Don’t worry, jump the shark, only choose a different one every day, and you’ll get those eyeballs you’re craving.

Politics is show business for ugly people. But it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be, and we knew it, but we forgot to care, and after more than a year of these shenanigans the public was exhausted. You lose the capacity to be outraged, if something outrageous happens every twenty minutes, and no matter how much your Twitter scolds you for apathy, at some point you succumb to the temptation of not giving a fuck anymore.

He wants to build a wall? _Ah, let him._

She is in bed with Wall Street? _Well, aren’t they all?_

He said what? She did what?

Fuck me, just let it be over already. I think it should’ve been Bernie anyway…

You were heading to a party and already felt hangover, that’s how it was. Caro gave me “I’m With Her” lapel pin and was checking that I wore it the way some wives check wedding ring on your finger. Well, I wore it. It wasn’t a lie anyway.

And I believed she’d win, I just wasn’t sure how much was left to inherit in the country where neighbors and spouses were promising to stop talking to each other if she did.

My phone conversations with Mom became shorter and shorter as the time went by. I rarely spoke to my dad, but that was mainly because he wasn’t big on yammering, as he called it. He’d ask me how I was, hear that I was fine, and that was enough for him. If I needed something, I knew I could come to him; there was no need to belabor the point.

With Mom it was different, because she is Mom and she is curious. Was I eating well? Did I sleep enough? Did I get along with my landlord? Did I have winter clothes? (“Sneakers aren’t winter clothes, Timothy!") Did I use fabric softener for my laundry? How much? (“Too much is bad, too.”) What was that thing on that photo? Looked very sugary. (“Eat more fruits.”) Could I afford fruits? Did I need money? (“Well, I’ll send you some, anyway.”) Did Caroline wear skirts? (“On TV, it seems girls in New York no longer wear them…”) Were we living together? Were we going to? (“Why not?”) Did I see _Hamilton_? (“Why not?”) Was I coming back to Michigan? (“Why not?”)

“Dad quarreled with Bob,” she told me this time.

“Over what?” I was surprised.

Bob Therpins lived three houses down on our street, he and Dad were thick as thieves, went fishing together all the time. Usually, if my dad wasn’t working, you could find him in Bob’s garage, helping to revive the Buick that the whole town knew was long past saving.

“Bob’s going to vote for Jill Stein…” she sighed.

“Please, don’t tell me that they fought over _Jill Stein_,” I groaned.

She didn’t say anything.

“Mom?” I glanced at the screen, checking if she was still there. “Hey?”

“Are you…” there was a pause. “Are you ashamed of us, Timothy?”

“What?” I paused with a glass in my hand. “Why?”

She was silent again.

“Look, Mom… No. No, I’m not ashamed of you, ok? I promise. It’s…” I sighed. “Forget about this crap. You can vote ten times for him, and it doesn’t change anything. I don’t give a damn,” I said angrily.

“Because he’ll lose?” she asked.

“No,” I told her. “Not because he’ll lose. Because you’re my mom, and you’ll always be my mom. And I’m proud of you, you hear? It’s just an election, it doesn’t matter.”

“And Caroline?”

“Caroline… has her own views,” I closed my eyes, glad that she couldn’t see me. “She is a big girl, she can handle the fact that different people have different opinions, ok?”

I imagined her nodding pensively. “Will you come home for Thanksgiving?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” I sighed. “Let’s get there, and we’ll see…”

I didn’t know what to do about Thanksgiving, to be honest. On one hand, I hadn’t been home for almost a year and it was time to visit, but on the other, this was another opportunity to see Armand, and they were few, so I was torn. I couldn’t tell my mom about it, though. But I wanted to. In truth, I wanted to talk to her, to someone – anyone – about what was going on. But how?

I had no idea how my mom would react to my infatuation with a man. I knew her, and she knew me, and we trusted each other, but in these situations you just never know. About my dad I preferred not to think even, because he was a different story, and though I didn’t remember him ever engaging in gay bashing, I could guess that he was completely unprepared for the reality where his son was dating a guy.

Good news, you might say, was that it’d probably never happen, so no need to sweat it now. But then again, I didn’t think it was on the menu before Armand, and now it suddenly was, so… I mean, he couldn’t be the only guy on the planet that could capsize my ship of state so effortlessly, could he? No, surely not - there was Brad, too. And Brad, I supposed, my dad could understand. In theory.

So, you see, I wasn’t all prescient and wise those last days of October. I did exactly what everyone else was doing – looking in the mirror, admiring my own face and treating the hints that it had two sides as crazy conspiracy theories.

I was falling in love, and for the first time in my life I could feel it while it was happening to me. I thought about him constantly, and, as I said, I wanted to talk to someone, but the only person around who’d be sorta in the loop was Caro. Well, I talked to her. By which I mean that I found every excuse to reroute the conversation in his direction, to find out more about him. Unfortunately, Caro didn’t think that her father was particularly fascinating, so her replies were mostly shrugs and don’t knows.

She didn’t know what subject he excelled in at school, and she didn’t care. She had no idea why he loved swimming. She couldn’t even tell me his favorite color. Unbelievable! She’d had him for twenty-four years and she’d wasted them on her mom, because – oh! – she could tell me a lot about Liza P. Liza could ride a horse, pick a lock, cut and polish gemstones and stand on her head. She couldn’t remember to call her daughter regularly, that Wonder Woman, but otherwise she was perfect.

Caro watched _Gone with the Wind _religiously, and Scarlett, who could conjure a dress out of an old curtain, revive an estate and shoot a Yankee, if the situation demanded, Scarlett was what Liza could have been, if some dull Armand hadn’t trapped her in a marriage. Or something like that.

It didn’t occur to Caro, though, that it wasn’t an easy feat to trap a woman like Scarlett, and no one really managed to do it, apart from her herself. I didn’t say it, of course, because I’m pretty sure the only reply I’d get would be that, yeah, her dad was probably some sort of Ashley Wilkes, that milquetoast of a character who royally wasted Scarlett’s time.

Well, I thought he wasn’t. We were watching that green bonnet scene and I heard the words, “You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how,” and let me tell you, it wasn’t Ashley Wilkes saying it, and it wasn’t Clarke Gable, either.

I concurred. I needed kissing, badly.

And Armand knew how.

I felt it in my bones, he knew how.

I wasn’t a girl, I wouldn’t fall for no Ashley Wilkes, thank you.

I had to see him again. No, scratch that, I had to touch him. I wanted to touch him so badly, my skin itched. I had temperature spikes during the day, my dick reacted to every word starting with an A and I began having visions.

Mostly, I saw Armand, of course. Tyler Durden-flashes of him around my office and on the street. But then I thought we should take our affair somewhere private and relocated him to my apartment. He looked good there. I could transport him from my kitchenette, to my bedroom, to my bathroom – he was very mobile and very obliging. You could ask him to take off his shirt – he would. Didn’t even argue. We had some difficulty with his pants, though, because I had trouble imagining what was there exactly, but the chest I mapped out, more or less.

I knew it was hairy, for starters. I noticed it when we first met. How hairy? That I didn’t know, so I adjusted it to my preferences. My preferences up until then had been no hair below the eyebrows but I could be magnanimous in his case. Plus, I could shave him. He wouldn’t argue. 

He was very useful in the shower, I must say. Very. Looked up at me, licked his lips and nodded enthusiastically. His hair didn’t stick to his wet scalp, he didn’t choke on water, didn’t complain about his knees – acquire an imaginary friend, my advice, it beats everything.

When I was in bed alone, he was there with me, too. His face on a pillow, inches from mine, ice in his eyes would melt slowly and he’d put his huge palm on my cheek, his thumb stroking gently, and the city sounds would subside and float away, leaving us in this rainbow bubble, me and my Armand, looking at each other silently, breath away from a kiss. In those moments I’d feel as peaceful and content as never before, getting something that no place, profession, country or party could give a person – raw belonging, deep understanding of yourself, meaning.

And I’d say, “You know, if all we had was just this, just your head on a pillow next to mine, I’d be fine with it, for the rest of my life. I promise.”

His eyes would narrow, and he’d whisper that I was a liar, that such promises worked only in movies, that “enough” was usually the first word passion erased from the dictionaries.

He’d remind me that right then I was frantically searching for another excuse to see him, that I scoured the internet looking for his photo, that I knew exactly how many seconds it’d take to run from my office to his, that I had red roofs of Alfama cascading into the ocean as my screen wallpaper at work and dreamed he’d take me there some day. 

That I was young, and young people are curious and hungry, and usually slice the knots that they can’t untangle.

“But what should we do then?” I’d ask.

And to that he had no answer.

I tried to picture us making love, and couldn’t. Stock images of my memory insufficient for this task. But I felt his size, his heaviness pressing me down, my hands struggling to meet across his broad back, he’d rise on his elbows and look down at me, so close, a breath away from a kiss.

I’d look at my naked body in the bathroom mirror and wonder why he wanted it. What did he see? How did he see it? It seemed so inadequate to me then, all spindly legs and pencil-thin arms, my chest pale and boyish, every rib visible in the cruel light. He was all man, and I all fawn, fumbling and desperate, more awkward than cute.

Yet he wanted me.

And if he had fantasies like these, they must have had better plots than mine. He’d know what to do and where to touch and how. Even if he wasn’t here with me, he’d know what sounds I was making all alone in my bedroom, he’d know that I taught myself to tolerate two fingers and was struggling with the third, know the shame I felt when it was over and that I was eager to try again in no time.

How did it happen to him? Who was his first? Was it what he wrote about so long ago? When was it? In the 80s, probably. Jesus, right when AIDS came… First cases reported in New York. _Death by drowning on an inland sea._ Shame, horror and lust. Love in the time of the Plague. He was sixteen or just about. His father got a medal… from Reagan.

Did he lose someone? Did he look like me? Is that why?..

Subpar fiction about dead lovers. Unacceptable…

Then Elizabeth. How?

Is she really blind? Was she?

_Oh, yeah. God, is my husband a homo?_

Is that why?

Jesus…

And now – jasmine. Cupid’s flower. Bull’s eye this time, my boy, bull’s eye.

Did it work with Ganymede, too? Oh, sorry, that’s the Greeks. Sorry. But still… God of thunder… didn’t end well, did it? but still… yes! crucify me into stars… memories of dark passion burning… brightly… forever…

I was staring at the ceiling, thoughts swirling in my head, like butterflies caught in a hurricane.

“You shouldn’t die,” I whispered. “You shouldn’t die. It’s not too late…”

When I came, I almost passed out. On TV, the news was breaking that James Comey reopened the investigation into Hillary’s emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. I couldn’t care less. I was falling in love with gravity-defying speed.

“Stanley,” I came to my editor. “I have an idea.”

He absentmindedly patted his chest, over the inner pocket, where he carried a flask those days. “Better be a good one,” he said tiredly.

“I thought I’d write how Trump affected modern literature…” I said, trying to sound like it was a genius thought.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Stanley muttered. “Who cares how he affected literature? He almost destroyed the country.”

“She’ll win,” I said automatically.

“Yes, she will,” he nodded to himself. “She definitely will. Or half of Hollywood will move to Canada, that’s catastrophic,” he rolled his eyes and got back to his screen.

“So?” I tried again. “I know an editor, from Random House. He works with Rushdie. He’s a good source.”

“Give it to Greta,” Stanley frowned, concentrated on something he was reading. “Rushdie… No news here - these days he’s on TV more often than Jake Tapper…”

In short, dismissed.

“Look, Stanley, it can be something else, I could ask… Well, I could investigate what he thinks himself…”

“Who?” he stared at me. “That editor? Who cares what he thinks?”

I opened my mouth to protest.

“Quit wasting my time, Tim, and go do something productive,” Stanley glared.

I retreated. My brain was all unicorns and rainbows, that harebrained idea was the best I could invent, and I was lucky Stanley was busy, or he’d actually pay attention to me and wonder what I’d been doing that I had time to come up with something so preposterous.

When Caro asked me about Comey, I assured her it wouldn’t mean anything, just another bump in the road, a nuisance. I barely noticed it, honestly. It was huge, and it was my job to care, and I didn’t.

Want another movie analogy? The iceberg was right ahead, and I chose that exact moment to climb on the prow and start screaming that I was the king of the world. Yehhhaaa!

Horny people and people in love should be marooned. For everyone’s sake.

If Armand had Facebook, I’d start sending him anonymous messages, I swear.

_Want to be your love slave, for life. TIA._

_Saw your ass on the street. OMG! OMG! OMG!_

_I’m the best you’ll ever have, MMW._

But he didn’t have it. He didn’t have anything, I checked. No Facebook, Twitter, Grindr, Instagram or Bumble. He did have a cellphone, though, and I entertained the thought of buying a burner and flooding his voicemail with husky erotic confessions. He’d know it was me, but for alibi’s sake anonymity was better. He needed a way out, if it all blew up, and I needed one, too.

He could always say it was some creep stalking him. And the way he looked, no one would doubt his words. Some maniac lost his mind over that butt? Sure! Who wouldn’t?

It was a miracle riot police wasn’t called every time he left his house, IMHO.

So, everyone was losing their heads over this new Hillary scandal, and I looked at them and snorted. What will it change? I thought. Nothing. Yes, her numbers dropped momentarily, for a couple of days, but then it got back to normal. By that time, Trump’s crude prophecy had come true – if either of them shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, they still wouldn’t lose any voters. Slowly but surely we lost the capacity to change our mind, and people like me helped.

Independents? What fucking independents? Both parties shed them long ago. Now, a week before the election, no one was going to watch Comey, solemnly reading his letter, and think, “Oh my god, I was wrong, it should be Trump. I see it now!”

(By the way, I still think so. Scapegoating Comey became very popular in November, but that’s like putting all the blame for the melting planet on ExxonMobil – convenient and hypocritical. Everyone’s complicit.)

Though, maybe I was wrong - my brain was on autopilot, after all – maybe we lost it in the last days of October: face-planted three inches from the finish line. Happens to the best of them…

I was working on a piece about the state Criminal Justice Reform Act that was signed into law on June 13 and was intended to spare you a criminal record for low-level nonviolent offences, like urinating in public or forgetting to put your Jack Daniels in a paper bag. I had about 500 pages of stats and reports to read and sum up, and I was blanking, staring at it stupidly and desperately trying to inject some pizzazz into the two paragraphs I had written already.

De Blasio will run in 2020, guaranteed, and he’ll brag about reduced crime rates in New York… Bratton, his faithful but controversial police commissioner, has just resigned in September… All the pieces matter… Think, think, think…

I couldn’t. The planet was melting, and I was melting with it, messily, all over my desk.

What’s Armand doing now, huh? Missing me? I hope he’s missing me. Hope he’s melting, too. Ahhhh, what a sight… Melted Armand with cheese and spices… Mouthwatering…

I was melting, my dick wasn’t.

My phone started buzzing and I picked it up without much caring. Glanced at the screen. Almost fell from my chair.

“Caro’s dad” was calling.

How did I do it? I wondered. Is Blas the new patron-saint of lost causes? I’ll pray to him from now on, I decided. If George Carlin prayed to Joe Pesci, I could canonize de Blasio – into thy hands I commend my gay spirit, Bill, don’t let me down.

“Yes,” I said carefully, cleared my throat, tried again. “Yes, Timothée Chalamet here.”

Right there, he knew it wasn’t his best idea, because he didn’t say anything at first.

“Timothée, it’s Armand Hammer… Um, Caro’s father.”

“Yes,” I said again. “Is she alright?”

He assured me she was, apologized for some reason, then proceeded to explain why he called. He wasn’t good with excuses, either. The best he could do was remember some friend of his, who had a son who wanted to be a journalist, and would I be so kind as to find him an employment in my newsroom. I didn’t have to, if I couldn’t, but, well, maybe I could… He’s a talented boy, you see?

“Ummm,” I purred, “how talented?”

“Well, he went to Columbia.”

“Very good boy…”

He said nothing. I imagined him licking his lips. I have good imagination.

“So, I guess…” he started. “I don’t want to…”

Oh, not so fast, dear. What do you think, I’ll just let you off the hook so easily?

“Don’t hang up,” I told him firmly. “I want to see you.”

“No, I don’t…”

“Come to me, baby, Don’t keep me waiting, Another night without you here, And I’ll go craaaazy…” I crooned.

“What?” he spluttered.

“Cher is playing in the office,” I shrugged. It was true, actually. “Where are you?”

He blinked. He definitely did. “I… at work.”

Very good.

“What’s it like?”

“My work?” he was surprised.

“Your office. Describe it to me. What’s it like?”

“I don’t think…”

“Dark and stuffy, manuscripts up to the rafters?” I grinned. “Cobwebs in the corners?”

“No,” he smiled. Definitely. “It’s very light. Big window, almost floor-to-ceiling. Furniture is light, too. Pine, I think.”

“Cheap.”

“Sturdy.”

“Oh,” I sighed wistfully. “Broad sturdy desk, is it?”

God, I wanted to be on top of it, it could probably hold us both. Are you thinking the same thing? Of course, you are. You’ve probably spread me on this desk twice since breakfast today already. Was I good? Not too salty?

“It’s comfortable,” he murmured.

No splinters for my ass then, I nodded.

“Took you a long time to get there?”

“About ten years,” he agreed. “Excuse me…”

He covered the speaker and I heard someone’s muted voice. They discussed something briefly, and he returned.

“Who was it?” I asked.

“My secretary,” he sighed. “Assistant. Both.”

Chainsmokers’ _Closer _started. _I was doing just fine before I met you… _Oh, yeah, familiar.

“Did you sleep with her?” I balanced a pencil on the tip of my finger and waited for it to fall.

He drew in breath. “Who said it’s ‘her’?”

“Oh,” I opened my eyes, the pencil was still there. “The plot thickens. Did you?”

“That’s very inappropriate question.”

Hang up then, I rolled my eyes. “Depends on the answer.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Because it’s a ‘her’?”

“You tell me,” he sounded angry.

I pursed my lips, thinking. “Because you don’t want trouble, and these things get very messy very quickly.”

“Yes, they do.”

“I want to see you,” I said again.

“Timothée…”

“On election night,” I talked fast, “we planned to be in Javits Center, but I’ll get sick, I think. I’ll feel very tired and want to stay home. Some tea would surely help. So, invite us.”

“It’s not a good idea,” he said quietly.

“We’ve left the land of good ideas long ago,” I snorted. “Invite us.”

He was quiet. “I don’t think you understand the situation…”

“I understand the situation,” I assured him. “I’m part of the… situation. I explode into a thousand little Dalmatians thinking about you. And I can’t _stop_ thinking about you.”

“Dalmatians?” he chuckled.

“Whatever.”

“I love dogs…”

“Then pet me, I won’t bite. I promise,” I winked.

He sort of sighed, and his tone sharpened infinitesimally. “What do you want from me, sweetheart?”

I… couldn’t say. Well, I mean… Well, you know… I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times. I mean… Well… You called me, I was ready to protest. What do _you _want?

“Chalamet!” Stanley appeared out of nowhere, and I’d never been this happy to see him. Ever.

“Talking to One Police Plaza,” I replied cheerfully and covered the speaker. “Their stats don’t add up.”

He hovered over me for a second, glanced over the stacks of paper on my desk and decided he’d believe me, for now.

“Don’t sit on this thing too long,” was his recommendation.

“Just polishing it,” I smiled. He nodded and was on his way. “Armand?”

“You’re a good liar,” he was smiling.

“I wasn’t,” I told him. “I’d been an honorable schoolboy all my life, but things happen, don’t they?”

“I have to go,” he sighed.

“I’ll text you.”

“Don’t.”

“Then I’ll call,” I smiled.

“Blackmail is pulpy, Timothée,” he said gently. “Have a nice day.” Beep, beep, beep. 

_Yehhhaaa!_

_Iceberg! Right ahead!_

Yeah, that’s what it felt like.

“I’ll text you anyway,” I muttered.

Isn’t falling in love the best? It’s like ice cream, no matter the flavor you won’t say no. Can do it with pizza, but with ice cream – never.

One of Caro’s girlfriends was getting married in December, and Caro, reasonable and practical girl that she is, was unexpectedly interested in the matter - that night they were still choosing buttons for the dress, the task of such importance and complexity, it took them days to accomplish. Naturally, I wasn’t invited. Understandably, I was grateful.

I went home after work, spent long minutes staring at the assortment of ramen noodles I had, finally decided on creamy chicken, then took a lovely shower with Armand, who was as obliging as ever. I loved him better when he wasn’t talking – beautiful people don’t need to, I think. At all. God didn’t create them for that, anyway.

I brought some documents home with me and even managed to read through ten or so pages, but my eyes strayed to the phone every couple of minutes and finally I gave up.

“Estelle with you?” I wrote.

He didn’t reply. Of course, he didn’t. He told me not to write to him. Well, half of the planet tells us that they don’t need democracy, so what? We bomb them anyway, because we want the world to be a better place. Intentions matter, I think, and I had the best. Unclear, but best.

“Do you like Robert Redford?”

No reaction.

“I love him. I wanted to be him. But I’m Dustin.”

Silence.

“I’m sure you hate Reagan. Deep in your heart, you do. It’s ok.”

Nada.

I returned to my papers, read another ten pages, got distracted, got angry.

“I can’t work. What’s your favorite color?”

Nothing. Not even “please, fuck off.”

“I love black and red. You’ll look horrible in red, btw”

Ok, that was a step too far, I realized. Funny, how these things become clear to you only after pressing “send.”

“Sorry.”

Drum roll, drum roll, drum roll – and…

Like talking to a wall, I swear.

What a snowflake!

Sooo sensitive.

“I said sorry.”

I looked at the time. 10:34. Maybe he was sleeping already? My grandma used to go to bed very early, too.

Ah, it must be a sight… No, not my grandma. She was a good woman, but we didn’t find each other irresistible; Armand on the other hand…

I never saw his bedroom, I mused. What if I never will? What if Estelle is there? What if… what if they are making love… right now?

“This is so unfair,” I wrote. “Life is fucking unfair.”

Then I added, “I hate falling in love with you. I want it to be someone else. I’m tired.”

I sat up on the bed and made myself read another thirty pages of police reports. I should concentrate on my work, I thought. I came here to be a journalist, I knew the life I wanted, and I was jeopardizing it all for a fling. For a second there, I was ready to leave it all and go back to Michigan, and why? Because I was falling in love with someone that I shouldn’t?

Fuck, I wasn’t the first. And people survived worse. Or didn’t. A guy in Brazil was crushed to death by a cow that fell through his roof in the middle of the night. And the worst part? That fucking cow was completely unharmed.

Yes, that’s what it’s usually like: you live your life, have dreams, make plans, and then – love. Like a cow through the roof. No explanation. No apology. Thought you’d just go to bed, like every other day, not bothering anyone? Think again!

And the worst part? The cow is completely unharmed. Probably making love to someone else.

“I just want you to be in my life. That’s what I want,” I wrote and sent to him. “And I don’t want to want it.”

I gathered the papers and put them away, I had enough for three short columns on page 17.

October was slowly turning into November, and my apartment was just a degree or two warmer than the street. I looked at a small electric heater that had helped me survive before and decided I didn’t need it that night. Would serve me good, I had to thicken my hide a bit. The winter was coming, and it didn’t look like anyone would be there to tuck me in.

“Fuck you. Good night.”

I texted and closed my eyes, wrapping myself tightly into a blanket.

The sudden light looked red leaking through my eyelids. I blinked. The room was softly blueish.

“Good night,” I read his reply.

No explanation. No apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you! I hope reading this wasn't a waste of your time.


	8. Chapter 8

November, then. What can I say about November? Let’s not rhapsodize about it much, it’s exactly like life – in places beautiful, in places dirty. We all messed up, we all missed. It didn’t have to be that way, but you only see it later, when it’s so easy to correct the mistakes from the safe distance of time.

I find myself unwilling to write about it, to think and find the answers, too often hurtful, rarely flattering. I want to skip this part, want to go back to October, even if only to October, to reading again his “good night” and choking on sudden hope. I really don’t want to write about November.

The enthusiasm and premature celebration then look ridiculous now. It’s difficult to get yourself back to the time where the outcome was still a surprise. That’s the challenge of writing a story about Titanic – what do you give your audience, when everyone already knows the final twist?

But let’s jump on the upper deck and spin for a final second, let’s repeat the words, “When this ship docks, I’m getting off with you.” Let’s believe them, let’s memorize them. The iceberg is only 200 feet away, don’t waste those precious moments.

I would write to him again. He wouldn’t reply, but he was reading it and that’s why I kept texting. I didn’t flood him with 20,000 messages like that chick who didn’t know the difference between love and harassment. I didn’t even write to him every five minutes or so, not even every hour. There wasn’t much to write about, honestly.

_Slept well?_

_Hate Walmart. You?_

_Kimmel or Colbert? Can’t stand Fallon _

_You probably love guys like Pynchon. Very smart. Very. Reading the new Lee Child. Highly recommend _

_That pumpkin latte is nothing special. Try it, tho _

_Lost three socks in the laundromat. Three. Again. uhhhh_

_Have you tried venison tacos?_

_Fuck, you’re probably a vegan_

_Fuck_

Sometimes I’d send him a photo, usually of my coffee, the types that I loved – 9/10 whipped cream, 1/10 coffee proper. Diabetes in a cup, to be precise. I expected him to be horrified, and he probably was, but the straw that finally broke my camel’s back wasn’t in my cup, because after five days of me sending signals into space, all Carl Sagan-like, I got the response so dull and marvelous, my love for him grew exponentially.

“Be so kind, use the period marks. It’s painful,” he wrote.

Jesus, what’s with this family and the dots? They are _obsessed_.

Still, it was like… like going from 0 Twitter followers to 1. Joy unimaginable. I started naming our future children immediately. I couldn’t imagine where else it was going.

“Let’s make a deal,” I texted back. “My periods – for your replies.”

I sent it.

Read it again. It didn’t sound as good as I thought.

“Forget about my periods. I don’t have periods. Write back.”

I sent it too.

Shouldn’t have.

“Just write back, ok?”

He didn’t. He’s so childish sometimes.

“Where’s my invitation for November 8?” I wrote, not expecting to hear anything, and didn’t get anything. “Fuck you,” I continued, “see you at your place.”

“And I met with Carlos, btw,” I added.

Carlos was the dude he’d called me about the week before. I had no hiring power at the _Post_ and couldn’t really help him, but even if I had, I’d hesitate to do so, because he was one of those guys whom people usually call “rich spoilt brats,” and people are right in his case. He expected the job to come to him, and not just any job, but a showbiz writing gig (“music industry in particular”) in one of the largest publications in the country. I promised I’d do what I could and gave the pieces he brought me to our guys from the entertainment section, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t run into Carlos in my office any time soon. Regardless, I did what Armand asked, and I thought I deserved a brownie at least.

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” he wrote back.

“Fuck you,” I replied, without a period.

And that’s how we communicated. Not exactly an epistolary romance, but a romance nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I was rehearsing the getting sick part that I intended to use as my ticket back to Armand’s apartment. The biggest problem was that I wasn’t sick at all, I felt infuriatingly great, probably because love has curative powers, and health meant that I’d be dragged to Javits Center to wave Hillary banners all night…

No, I decided once again, you’ll do fine without me there, Hillary, I’ve done my part already, writing about you incessantly for months; this night I need for myself.

Caro, unsurprisingly, thought otherwise. So I went all Ferris Bueller on her ass.

I’m pale as it is, and three hours of sleep make me look like death, which is very useful occasionally. So I binged _The Office _for two nights, and the results were striking enough for Caro to frown and ask about my wellbeing. I said I was just exhausted, but there was a weekend coming and I’d have time to relax. She thought so, too.

The weekend, of course, didn’t make it any better, because I suddenly had a fever - thanks to my portable heater - no appetite and a cough. Caro suggested we called a doctor, I replied that some chicken broth would help.

It seemed more and more like the Javits had to be cancelled. Caro was heartbroken, and I felt guilty as fuck – neither of us knew then that my scheming saved us from the emotional bloodbath that was about to take place there. If it wasn’t for my perfidy, Caro’s crying face would‘ve been plastered on every screen in the nation, with millions in the audience hooting and cackling, watching the libtards being owned.

But we didn’t know it then, so I felt guilty. I was stealing the moment she’d been waiting for for so long, and I did it out of selfishness, really. I’d like to romanticize it and say that I was in love, and love is a justification enough, but it’s not – I was lying to my girlfriend, I was using her. And I would’ve done the same, even if Hillary had won, so I have no right to pretend to be a hero here.

Still, the Javits was out, and as soon as it was out, Finn was in. I saw it coming, too. I heard her mentioning that her coworkers planned a party on election night, so why not go there? Well, I was all for it, nodded enthusiastically, then swallowed some soap on the sly and threw up all over the kitchen floor. I aimed carefully, so it didn’t catch Caro, but she almost threw up too, because love is beautiful and I’m cute as hell, but ewww… just ewww…

I apologized, of course, mopped it up and looked very repentant. Caro was thinking, and I knew what she was thinking – if I wasn’t fit for her friends, I was still good enough for her dad. Who’d care if I messed one of his hand-woven rugs, right?

Ah, be kind to your parents, they deserve more from you. They’ve put up with enough already by the time you’re twenty-four to be left in peace and not getting saddled with your sick boyfriends. Yet, when Caro said that Armand was planning to have some friends over that night, I immediately said that that’s where we should be as well. A party with old people is better than no party at all, I reasoned, and she sort of agreed. In all honesty, I suspect she just didn’t want to be stuck with my stinky self on the biggest night of the year, and her dad… Well, if he had put up with so much, he could put up with this, too.

I was there when she called Armand to impart the good news, and I would’ve given a three-month paycheck just to see his face when he heard it. Caro isn’t a bashful girl, so she didn’t waste time on “could we, please” and simply informed him that we would. Definitely.

“Should we bring something?” she asked.

I picked up my notepad and prepared to write it down, but Armand, apparently, was happy just to see us. Any time. Sure, Cara. 

Chivalry isn’t dead, my friends. Find yourself a fifty-year-old, and you’ll find your chivalry. You know why millennials have less sex than the previous generations? Because they’re dating other millennials, that’s why. Meanwhile, all these well-mannered old guys just walking around, all their untapped potential… untapped.

Someone has to tap it.

Someone has to give a hand. 

My body was ready, my hands, too.

Open your arms and prepare to catch me.

By the way, me and Armand, we’d be able to do that _Dirty Dancing _shtick like nobody’s business, I could see it. His whole being was made for that sort of schmaltz, and mine too, I guess.

I could feel him grabbing my hips and lifting me up, up, up – and…

_I’m flying! Jack, I’m flying!_

Fuck the iceberg, fuck final twists. Draw me like one of your French girls – we’ll pawn the diamond and live in Jersey with a cat and a dog, for the next 84 years.

It’s looove!

“It could be stomach flu,” I heard Caro saying.

Well, yeah, it could be, the symptoms are similar, but it wasn’t the flu, it hadn’t been the flu for a long time then.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Armand texted me that night.

“I am,” I wrote back. “Does it matter?”

He didn’t reply. I suppose because it didn’t, and we both knew it. Shame doesn’t stop people from doing worse things, and with love, what can shame do about love? Is there anything that can do anything about it? I wasn’t supposed to feel what I was feeling, and I couldn’t stop.

Looking back, you can say, “I wouldn’t do this or that today,” or “I’d do it differently,” or “I’d know better,” but you don’t say, “I wouldn’t love this or that person,” because, if you’re honest with yourself, you have to admit that you would. Even with all the power of the hindsight, you would.

Live three thousand lives, and it’ll be the same. Everything else could be corrected and improved, everything else could be avoided, but not this.

If I came to New York and met Armand three thousand times, I’d fall for him three thousand times. No matter what.

Shame… There was once an interesting poll – various athletes were asked if they would take the drug that’d leave them paralyzed eventually, but that’d guarantee them a gold medal. About 70 percent said yes, they would, and the rest were probably lying, because being hit by a bus can leave you paralyzed, but no one sprays you with champagne and stadiums don’t go wild when it happens. There are moments that are worth more than decades, and you don’t complain about the price.

I was ashamed, but it didn’t matter.

I was going to see him again, and if he was so worried about it, it was worth it.

Of course, I had to keep up the charade for a couple more days – it wouldn’t do, if I suddenly miraculously recovered. So I didn’t, I looked miserable until Tuesday, when I cast my vote for Hillary, raised a toast to our first female president at the office and by eight was free to go and join Caro at Armand’s.

I brought croissants. Because I’m a good guest and because I like them myself, and as I like them with chocolate, I had them with chocolate. How Armand liked them, or if he did at all, I had no idea and didn’t much care.

I’m a millennial, and we’re taught that we should love ourselves more. I concur. Wholeheartedly.

Armand, on the other hand, was almost a baby boomer, and those guys - experts told me - stole my economic future. Right now, I was busting my ass to maintain afloat the retirement and healthcare benefits that _he_ voted and _I_ had to pay for, so I deserved those croissants, damn it. And love, too.

“Chocolate,” I thrusted the box to him. “What?”

“How nice to see you, Timothée,” he drawled. “Feeling better?”

I gave him the once-over – he was all in black again: dress shirt, sharply creased trousers you could cut your heart on, if you weren’t careful, and rolled-up sleeves. Yes, I felt better. His hairy forearms could cure cancer, I’m sure.

“Still kicking,” I nodded. “What about you?”

He smelled the box for some reason. “Fine, I’m fine. Thank you.”

I squatted to unlace my boots and looked up at him. “Are you a vegan?” I asked, distracted by the sudden proximity of my face to his crotch.

I guess he noticed it too, because he took a step back. “Why could it possibly matter to you?”

“Just curious if you’re as dull as you look,” I rolled my eyes.

He didn’t like it, his nostrils flared slightly. “No, I’m not.”

“Are you a vegan, though?” I smirked, getting up.

“I meant I’m not a vegan,” he sighed. “I trust you remember where the closet is,” he added and turned away to leave.

“Oh, I thought this whole place was a big one,” I replied evilly.

He froze midstride and turned sharply. “Stop it!” he hissed.

“Wanna spank me?”

I thought he’d crush something - that poor box in his hands or me, he looked like he really wanted to.

“Stay away from me tonight,” he warned.

You wish, I grinned, savoring his fine ass floating down the hallway. You wish, my pretty.

Fuck, if I had one talent, it was that I never fell for ugly people. And Caro was beautiful, but her dad, hell, her dad was on the next level, just a feast for the eyes, and he needed to be in my bed. I wanted all this beauty to touch all of me, wanted to know how his body felt, smelt, moved. I was fed up with the fantasies - here was the real deal and I had to find the way to seal it.

I needed to tempt him beyond endurance, needed him to snap. He wasn’t made of iron, after all, but if he was… There are temperatures at which even diamonds burn - and cheap bling or Kohinoor, physics is still the same.

“See these eyes so green…” I hummed quietly and followed him inside.

Ah, love… brings out the animal in all of us.

On that note…

I recently stumbled on tentacle porn, because you stumble on these things… Look, I did some research… Ok, some porn research, but no matter… Anyway, I stumbled. Uhhh, it was hot. Bizarre, slightly nauseating and hot.

If I had them tentacles on me right then – guests or no guests - I’d snatch his haughty ass, drag it by the ankles to me, and we’d open everything that’d been closed for so long.

_Eight loving arms and all those suckers…_

It was a blessing he wasn’t a telepath, he’d age another fifty years, if he knew what I was thinking entering his living room.

Or would he?

Hmmm…

He didn’t look put off by the spanking suggestion. And if porn teaches you anything, it’s that no matter how batshit your fantasy is, someone will always one-up you.

God, I should’ve texted him about that, should’ve asked him.

_What would Daddy like to do to Little Timmy, hm?_

_Me so ready._

Yeah, time to burn some diamonds here. November was getting almost Michigan cold.

I remember the first thing I saw in that living room was a bottle of champagne on dry ice, waiting for the words “Hillary Clinton is now the president-elect of the United States.” Funny how these details stay with you. Earlier I had talked to Mom, and she said they were preparing champagne, too; but only one of the bottles would be opened, I knew it; and judging by the polls it would be this Dom Pérignon, winking at me.

The atmosphere was really of a party. It was too early in the evening for any significant results to be announced, so the sound on TV was lowered and some gentle piano music floated in the air. Estelle, surprisingly, was working the bar and when I appeared, she turned to me and smiled warmly: “I learned to make Manhattan with ginger. Want one?”

That smile I remember, too. It was a happy one, full of contentment. It was too good of a night to spoil it with pointless squabbles.

“It’s really great,” Caro said, pointing to her glass.

“Sure,” I nodded to Estelle. “Thank you.”

“You look better,” Caro kissed my cheek, when I joined her on the couch.

“And you smell great,” I smiled and sniffed her lips. “What’s the situation?”

“Indiana and Kentucky by now,” she nodded towards the screen, where Wolf Blitzer was standing in front of a still mostly gray map. “Trump,” she rolled her eyes. “But we have Vermont.”

“Well, we’ve had it since the 80s. Thank you,” I took the glass from Estelle.

There were two other couples there. One of the men worked with Armand, and his wife was some sort of a wedding planner, only it wasn’t called that, but something fancier. Another guy was a photographer with _National Geographic, _married to a literary agent. It was the sort of a crowd, where it wasn’t enough to know the pseudonym “Elena Ferrante,” you also had to have an opinion about the recent investigation that revealed her real name to the world. Plus, of course, Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in literature – fresh outrage then - still kept people up at night.

I agreed that disclosing Ferrante’s name against her wishes was gross and petty, but couldn’t get why they were so worked up about Dylan.

“It’s not about the quantity,” I shrugged. “I mean, he probably wrote less than any average novelist in terms of characters, but that’s not what counts.”

“Oh, we have a minimalist here,” the woman, I think her name was Ciara, shook her head. “You must love Beckett.”

I wasn’t sure about “loving him,” but you can’t go wrong here: gentle alcoholic and perfectionist, conveniently dead, reassuringly uncontroversial - everyone loves him these days. At some point he’ll probably be cancelled, too, but for now you’re safe.

“Let’s say, I don’t think that a butter cookie or a moth deserve their own chapter,” I replied pleasantly and added, “Want to be boring – describe everything. Naipaul.”

It wasn’t. I really couldn’t remember who said it, but bringing up Naipaul produced a veritable storm here. This one was still alive and still a racist, but also a Nobel laureate from Trinidad; and oh boy, what a delicious conundrum – another Kanye in MAGA hat. People had opinions, of course, and they wanted them to be heard. I was sipping my Manhattan, it was really good.

Armand came, looked around and finally sat on the armrest beside Estelle. Anything so as not to sit next to me, I guess. She offered him a drink too, he refused, she made a cute face, he relented. Two grown-ups and flirting like teenagers…

“What did he say?” Caro asked him.

He snorted. “Your grandpa won’t miss his bedtime, even if Jesus were on the ballot,” he rolled his eyes. “Said he’d read all about it tomorrow.”

I reached for the finger sandwiches on the coffee table, but didn’t make it.

“You sure?” Caro grabbed my wrist.

The words left unspoken were, “Are you sure you won’t throw up in front of these well-read cultured people? Please, not tonight, dear.”

That’s the trouble with lying – people will believe you. Goodbye, camembert and avocado…

“Right,” I sighed, “right. A slice of bread would be better, of course. I’ll go get some.”

“In the kitchen,” she said distractedly and returned to postcolonial literature.

And you know, I was going to the kitchen, I swear. I knew where it was by then, so I was headed there, emotionally prepared to eat bread for the rest of the night, and then I remembered about Armand’s bedroom and the fact that I had never seen it, and that I really, really wanted to.

So I turned.

Bread could wait, and, if my luck changed, Caro would forget about my supposedly ailing stomach and let me get some of those sandwiches later.

I tried one door and found something that looked like a guest room. It had a bed, true, but it wasn’t the right bed, I could feel it. So I went to the next room right across from it and there found what I was looking for.

The Eldorado.

Yeah, that was it.

I closed the door behind me and took it all in.

It was what you’d call a masculine room – stern, spotless, somber: dark wooden panels, inky blue curtains and a matching carpet. Two doors on each side of the bed – closet and bathroom, probably. A TV panel on one wall and on another - a big painting of a sailing ship: huge three-masted thing coming at you, leaving some barren-looking land behind.

I noticed a small vanity in the corner and went there. It must have belonged to Elizabeth and before that to his mother - it was his parents’ apartment originally.

There were some creams, couple of perfumes and Caro’s childhood photo in an elegant silver frame. I read the label on Chanel. Pour femme. Estelle’s.

She slept in this room with him. No surprises here, just pain. A lot of it, suddenly, unexpectedly. I knew I’d see things like these here, and it didn’t make me double over and fight back tears, but still I felt it stronger than I was prepared to.

I told him I wanted to have him in my life, but would I take it, if I was no part of his? How much time would I be able to spend on the sidelines, before hope turned into envy and then into hate?

All those feelings he helped me to discover, would I loathe him later for letting them rot inside of me, ripe fruits in an abandoned orchard, poisoning my very soul?

I picked up the perfume and smelled it. I didn’t hate Estelle. Even when I said something like that, I knew I was saying it jokingly. I didn’t hate her. I was just jealous – I wanted to have what she had, nothing sinister. But look at Kentucky, it’d just voted for Trump – people, who can’t share the prosperity, sooner or later will want to destroy it. Every revolution in history – same roots. Would it happen to me?

There were nights when Petrarch must have hated his Laura and Dante his Beatrice, I’m sure of it. There were days when all the poetry in the world wasn’t enough to make life bearable.

Florentino Arizas are fiction, and even then their authors are usually kind enough to supply them with some whores to kill the time.

_I will always love you _are beautiful words, but how long is always? How long between love and resentment? Decades? Years? Months?

Mademoiselle Coco herself died a jaded spinster, on top of the world, alone in her bed. But when did the radiant smile die? Surely, long before the heart attack.

I put the bottle back and squeezed my eyes shut – I came here to storm the Armand fortress, not wallow in misery. Fuck misery – long live the Brooklyn Bridge. I won’t die a spinster, I told myself firmly, I’ll seduce the hell out of him - he’ll masturbate and cry thinking of my delectable ass. Masturbate and cry!

I’m the Beatrice here, damn it, so pack your bags, call up Virgil and get on your way – I’ll meet you on the other side, all in white and unutterably beautiful.

Yeah!

With that, I turned and looked at the bed. Now, this here was what most people imagined when they thought about beds, not my pitiful twin. It was huge, of course, because with Armand anything smaller than a helipad would be too constricting, but the size in itself wasn’t remarkable, the size I expected. What I didn’t expect was the pillows.

Five neat rows of them – from standard to miniscule.

They looked so damn ridiculous - they and the fuchsia coverlet beneath – it cracked me up. I didn’t like Estelle, true, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t the one who brought this acid trip here.

Liza P.?

Nah, she had some violently red streak in her creations, but it wasn’t her. His mom? No, she died years ago, and probably would do it again if she saw this. No, this here was the work of a mind liberated after years of marital captivity, free to roam the bedding displays and finally say, yeah, let’s get creative, let’s go fuchsia and to hell with public opinion.

I mean, how Caro could look at this and still wonder why her parents divorced?

Look, stereotypes are ugly, but… he was gay. Maybe not in his office, not in his living room, but here he definitely was – gay and proud of it, judging by how lovingly those pillows were arranged. 

Oh, sweet pea, I knew we had something in common.

You just relax, don’t worry about anything, think how beautiful my skin would look against your fuchsia. Come, come! Oh, yeah, want me on my back? Sure. No problem. Don’t be so bashful, I’m very nice. Wanna kiss my neck? Yes? Please, do. And my shoulders, and my chest, and my hips, and my heels… I’m very sensitive, touch screen boy from top to bottom, you can experiment, can adjust the settings to your liking.

Yes, here you can touch too, anywhere… Ah, no, you won’t squash me, it’s ok… it’s ok… God, I love your hair, love how it feels against my nipples… Hard, yes. For you! All that’s hard, it’s for you. What? Oh, yes, no one before you, but you may… yes, you may… just gently. I know you can be gentle, big men have to… It’s ok, it’s ok, we just need some patience here… fuck, your hands are so good… so tender… Have you waited long? How long is always?..

And that’s how he found me – sprawled on his bed: my hand between my legs and fuchsia pillow over my face.

Was it embarrassing? Sure.

Was I embarrassed? No, just horny.

“Get up!” He was furious, but he was helpless, and I looked at him and I knew it.

“Do you imagine it here?” I asked, trying to calm my breathing, got my hand away from my hard-on and ran it in a slow arc over the silky coverlet. “How often?”

“Get up,” he said again.

“I’m beautiful to you, aren’t I?” I whispered. “I feel beautiful when you look at me. I feel desirable…”

He closed the door behind him and folded his arms. I smiled. He didn’t.

“I can give you everything,” I bit my lips. “I just want everything in return.”

“You’re drunk,” he turned away.

“No,” I snorted quietly, “no. I’m not drunk, I’m just… No ice on the horizon, it’s still steamy windows and ‘getting off with you’ part in my head.”

He frowned. He thought I was childishly crass, probably. I wasn’t. I meant every word.

“Look at me,” I said. He didn’t move, so I repeated, “Look at me.”

Eyes so cold, pain so obvious…

I got up from the bed and went to him. He watched me and tried to look bored, tried to look angry.

“You need love,” I stopped in front of him. “I can give you love. The one you want.”

Standing so close, I realized my nose barely reached his shoulder. I leaned forward, and he grabbed my upper arms and held me in place. I looked up, he was staring unseeingly at something behind me, his face completely shut off, immobile, incongruent with the almost violent grip of his hands.

I made an effort, got on my tiptoes and reached for him, kissing the underside of his chin.

“Stop it,” he said, still not looking at me.

“Let me go,” I smiled.

He squeezed tighter. I kissed his neck, every bump of his throat, the peak of his Adam’s apple, went still lower, my tongue exploring that small dip between his collarbones. His skin was soft with age, sharpened with occasional wrinkle that I still didn’t have. He smelled of whiskey, ginger and something cool and frosty, male perfume I couldn’t name and would never mistake from then on. If he didn’t hold my arms so fast, I would’ve wrapped them around his neck and clutched him desperately to me, because there is no other way to handle the things you love. For dear life, no other way.

“My dear life,” I murmured and buried my face in the V of his collar. “My dear life…”

Suddenly one of his hands disappeared and I felt it running up my thigh, until he reached my ass and his fingers dove between my cheeks, cruelly. I gasped and looked at him, he was staring back, cold, distant eyes. Mocking.

He probed deeper, and it scared me. There was no gentleness there, no emotion at all. If he’d spat in my face, it wouldn’t have felt this degrading.

“Stop,” I winced. “Please, stop…”

He let go without a word and took a step sideways, leaving me facing the door. I’m sure my cheeks were burning. I tried to say something and couldn’t. He humiliated me, and I wanted to apologize, wanted to assure him that next time… that it was just so new to me… that I could be very good… that I just didn’t expect him to… that I wasn’t a child, wasn’t all talk… that I…

None of this was said, of course, because that sudden intimate touch was appalling to me and he saw it. So it didn’t matter who had to apologize here, if anyone – it wouldn’t have made the situation any less painful.

He politely asked me to leave and I nodded. I still couldn’t look at him. The only saving grace was that I didn’t burst into tears or throw myself at him again. At least, I managed to do that.

I don’t remember going to the kitchen and searching for the bread, but it seems that I did, because I had it with me when I returned to the living room.

It was half past ten or so, and our unsinkable ship had just started leaking. I asked for another drink and stared at the screen, where Chuck Todd was still cracking jokes.

Trump had just won Ohio, I was told. It wasn’t a big surprise, because his numbers had been consistently good there, but it was a swing state, and we were hoping to get it.

“Well, fuck them,” Caro sneered. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

Yeah, except for the fact that since 1964 no one had won a presidency without winning Ohio, I wanted to say, but didn’t. The night was still young, and it was an _annus mirabilis_ in terms of political campaigning, so who knew? Maybe, that rule would go out of the window, too.

“It should get better,” I squeezed her hand.

But it didn’t.

Half an hour later he won North Carolina, then Utah, then Iowa.

Literary discussions withered, the background music was stopped, and we were flipping through ABC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, whose anchors were still trying to convince us that everything was going according to plan. Though I didn’t remember any plan where he was leading in Florida, and by then he was.

_She can stay afloat with the first four compartments breached, but not five!_

It turned out six compartments were breached on Titanic on April 12, and it took about two hours for the greatest engineering achievement of the day to break apart and sink, its lonely survivors huddled in the boats – perplexed, hopeless, humbled.

Out of the swing states that voted for Obama in 2012, six – Iowa, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan - would eventually go for Trump in 2016. It would take about two hours to be announced and years to… sink in.

To understand how unbelievable what was happening in front of our eyes was, you need to remember Roger Ailes, then alive, already disgraced, a self-anointed kingmaker who turned Trump candidacy from a joke into a fact, when he gave him 24/7 coverage on Fox. There would be reports later that he called that night to Steve Bannon to discuss the launching of TrumpTV - a new and more radical version of Fox, that he planned to lead – he was sure it’d be over by nine, Trump would lose and the loss would be perfect for that outrage machine they were going to create.

When Bannon said they expected to win, Ailes laughed. 

He laughed. Despicable person, brilliant analyst, the guy who made the country elect Nixon twice, who gave Bush the war in Iraq because he gave him his audience, who saw a third-rate radio host named Sean Hannity and was able to turn him into a star with the most-watched cable news show in prime time, _that_ Roger Ailes.

It would take ABC almost an hour to admit that Hillary was losing Florida. When she finally did, they still couldn’t make themselves say that Trump was now the front-runner, even though he clearly was.

“What the fuck is happening?” Colbert would ask for all of the East Coast.

“Wisconsin and Michigan,” Mark Halperin, still employed, still respected, would reply. “He’s ahead in both. If he wins them both, he is President.”

“Oh my god…” the silence spelled. Oh my god…

But it would be over before that. When Pennsylvania was called for Trump, Armand’s guests quietly excused themselves and said they were leaving. Estelle was staring at the ceramic bowl adorning the coffee table, untouched glass of whiskey on her knee. Armand accompanied them to the door and poured himself some, upon returning.

Half an hour later, John Podesta would appear onstage at the Javits Center and have to look at the devastated faces of the people, who were still waiting for Hillary to come out and say something. She never would. Podesta would ask everyone to go home, he too wouldn’t have the words to explain that it was over.

Caro stood up and left the room, and I was left with Armand, Estelle and that Dom Pérignon, still waiting for the toast that would never come. We were told that it was a “whitelash,” a “historical upset,” that America was “crying tonight.” Chris Matthews mentioned Titanic, someone else – Hitler.

On the split screen, side by side, images from Trump’s and Hillary’s headquarters were shown – triumphant cheers against broken teary silence. My beloved, gun-blazing, sugar-high, bipolar country was having a severe abreaction – all its demons awake and dancing on a tip of an orange finger.

“This is your life now, this is our election now. This is us. This is our country. It’s real…” Rachel Maddow summed it up.

I got up and went looking for Caro.

She was in that room that I’d tried first searching for the master bedroom. I noticed Liza’s painting in the armchair in the corner and realized that it must have been her childhood room, though nothing of the little girl remained here now. Caro was standing by the open window, her back to me, smoking electronic cigarette; apparently so out of it, she didn’t notice that the smoke was fake.

I touched her shoulder and she stiffened.

“Please, don’t do it,” she said.

I took my hand away and stood leaning on the wall beside her.

“I hate this country…” she whispered, not looking at me.

“No, you don’t,” I replied automatically.

“Yes, I do,” she nodded. “Yes, I do. These people… these… stupid people… I don’t know these people… I don’t want to…” her breath caught. “Why?” she turned to me, and I saw that she was crying. “Why?..”

I looked at her helplessly. “She did what she could.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Oh my god…” she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my god… How is it possible? He is… nothing. He is… the worst. He can’t give them anything, he doesn’t care about anybody… and these people… How fucking stupid do you have to be to vote for him? How fucking dumb? 

“What jobs do they want? Picking strawberries? Packing meat? Cleaning toilets? Giving back massages for two bucks an hour? What do they think immigrants do in this country?”

“It’s not only about that,” I tried.

“Then what is it about?” she was angry now. “What is it about? You tell me! Can’t stand a vagina in the White House, is this it? She is smart, competent, prepared, she had experience, knowledge, strategy, vision. What the fuck does a woman need in this country to be taken seriously for once?”

I looked away. “She might be ahead of him in votes, we’ll know more tomorrow…”

“What the fuck does it matter?!”

“Caro, please…”

“Please, what?” she pushed my hand away again. “Please, what?”

“People hate Washington, and she _is_ Washington,” I shrugged.

“Yes, and what is he? Gilded pig from New York?” she banged the window shut.

“Caro, he didn’t create his voters, he only used them, but they were there before – those who got fucked on NAFTA, who lost their doctors to Obamacare, who went to Iraq and returned to see the eviction sign on their lawns, who are sleeping under the bridge now because they broke a finger and their doctor prescribed them Oxy, who lost their savings during Recession, who’ll be paying their student debts until they are sixty, who can’t afford either a new kid, or an abortion,” I was getting angry too. “Those people who don’t know how to say, ‘We’re fucking dying here!’ in a politically correct way!”

She stared at me. “Like your parents.” It wasn’t a question.

“Don’t drag my parents into this,” I warned.

“And why not?” she smiled innocently. “Did they vote for him or not?”

“You’ve never even met them, Caro,” I sighed. “Don’t.”

She shrugged. “I don’t _need _to meet them.”

I knew she was hurting, that she felt disoriented, humiliated, defeated. Two hours earlier in the ballroom and now rocking in a small boat in the middle of the Atlantic, her exquisite china, her Parisian lace and Savile Row dresses at the bottom of the ocean, indistinguishable from other trash. I knew it was a shock. I knew, even yesterday, she wouldn’t have said it the way she said it now, disdain and a note of revulsion in her voice. I knew and I didn’t hold it against her. I still don’t. But I also knew that it was over between us, everything that could have been was over now.

I watched tears drying on her cheeks, red polish flaking on her index nail - she bit it all the time - her haunted eyes, her fragile shoulders, I could see the birthmark on her stomach under the blouse, could remember how she felt in my arms, could tell that there were blisters on her heels because her new shoes were too small. Still there – and forever lost – was that girl who walked with me across the Brooklyn bridge in the rain, cooked chicken broth and laughed at Tony Soprano’s jokes with me; that girl I loved, once, she didn’t evaporate, no wicked witch had turned her into a frog, she was still there, but love wasn’t.

“It’s not the end of the world, baby,” I said, and she started crying again, but this time let me hold her. I gathered her in my arms, whispering that she shouldn’t stop believing, should hold on, just hold on, and, finally, she nodded and tried to smile, but it didn’t work. Neither of us remembered that it was the song Tony was listening to seconds before the bullet came.

It was close to three in the morning now and we both were tired, so, when she suggested we stayed there that night, I agreed. She showed me where to get fresh sheets and went to tell her father.

I lost them both, I thought. In one night. Somehow I lost them both.

I hadn’t had time to process that episode with Armand and was grateful for it – it was too much at once. I hadn’t looked him in the eye since we left his bedroom, and he didn’t speak to me. And even now, preparing the bed in Caro’s room, I still didn’t know what to say to him, how to explain… I kept feeling his touch, though, and it made me uncomfortable, made me want to push him away…

But it wasn’t what he did, it was how he did it…

It was…

If he was gentle, I would…

Ah, it didn’t matter, really. Break-up with Caro was just weeks away, I didn’t try to fool myself into inventing a happily ever after there.

I’ll let her do it, leave it to her, and then… Maybe I can try to sort things out with her dad? Can I?

Fuck it, tomorrow is another day, so I’ll think about it tomorrow, I decided.

Caro returned saying that we were welcome to stay and gave me a t-shirt. His t-shirt. I looked at it resignedly – I just couldn’t escape this bastard, could I? Now I had to sleep wrapped in him, too. 

_Just when I thought I was out…_

Oh, this family… this family will do me in, I swear.

No, it wasn’t fuchsia, it was black and without any print, as manly as you could go, I suppose. But I bet his underwear drawer could produce some surprises. No Joe Schmo had so many pillows - each of them in its own pillow case, mind you – and _stopped_ at pillows.

Did he have whips?

Did it matter, if it was over, supposedly?

Yes, it did. If he had them, not everything was lost. A guy, who has whips, needs a rosy bottom to apply them to. And when I say “bottom,” I mean “butt,” not…

Oh my god!

Oh my…

Maybe I wasn’t… maybe I wasn’t a bottom, maybe I only looked like one. Stereotypes are ugly, but… well, I sort of do look like one, next to Armand especially. Maybe that’s what threw him off. Mistaken identity, tragic…

But people compromise, right? And Armand is a civilized person, he’d know the concept, he could be… persuaded. Yes! I’ll break up with Caro, gently… No, she’ll break up with me, in whichever way she sees fit, and we’ll compromise with Armand then. Simple! Trump would still be president, I couldn’t do anything about it, but the rest was solvable.

I was still thinking about it when Caro returned from the bathroom, and when we switched off the lights, and when we talked about Hillary some more, and when we decided to fight the Nazism overtaking our country, and when she fell asleep, I was still thinking about it.

Not everything was lost.

And, well, you know how it happens… Or you don’t, I guess, if you aren’t into your in-laws, but it doesn’t matter, because that’s really how it happens.

I was thirsty. I mean, I drank a lot and had only that miserable bread to chew on, so around four in the morning I got up and went looking for water - I was pretty sure that health nut had some Evian in his fridge. I never do, I can get by on tap water, but people with dining rooms can’t, so, when in Rome…

Anyway, I was going to the kitchen, again, I swear. Whips and pillows couldn’t be further from my mind, it was all Timmy-is-a-good-boy-till-morning. Everything was quiet, only some distant sounds from the street, but people with dining rooms usually have soundproof windows too, so the sounds were almost nonexistent.

The country was still in deep faint from the election results, and I was walking to the kitchen, as I said, when I realized that the sounds I heard weren’t coming from the outside and saw the shining…

And the twins…

Nah, kidding. Just shining. From the living room.

So I turned. Who wouldn’t? If you’re a guest, feel free, roam around the house at night. Especially if you’re pale as a ghost, like me.

He was sitting on that bathtub of a couch, no shoes, several buttons of his shirt undone, his head in his hands and susurrant CNN postmortem on TV. There was a bottle, too. Grey Goose, quarter empty.

I stood and watched him for some time, not knowing what to do. But he didn’t look threatening; if anything, he was radiating bone-deep exhaustion, quiet ruthless defeat; so I came up and sat beside him.

He didn’t seem surprised, just heaved a deep sigh, the way an elephant would do, I suppose, and murmured something that I didn’t catch.

“I’m terrified… at the moral apathy, the death of the heart, which is happening in my country,” he said quietly. “…we must realize this, that no other place on earth has been so fat and so sleek, and so happy… and so irresponsible… and so dead.”

There were probably tears in his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the flickering of the screen.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Baldwin,” he replied. “I might have confused some words…”

“It’s not the end of the world,” I offered again.

He snorted without humor.

I should’ve seen a lot of things that night, I should’ve understood a lot, but I missed it. I misread him in the bedroom and I didn’t really hear what he tried to tell me now. I hadn’t yet grasped the difference that twenty-five years in age make.

I looked at him and I saw sadness, disappointment, maybe even despair, but I didn’t see the thing that kept him up and sent him to the bottle, because ours were two different countries, quarter century apart.

Mine had marriage equality, male movie stars kissing on big screen, Pride Parades and rainbow bumper stickers. So my sexuality didn’t scare me, I treated it as something amusing almost. I had never before thought, what it would mean to be gay. That it would change my life, down to the most mundane things, that it would mean that one day I would catch myself looking around before kissing someone on the street, that I would find myself carefully studying my company at every party before talking. That it would demand courage to take his hand on the street for the first time, because it would show the world that this man was my lover. This _man_ was my lover.

I never really lived through the Plague, and “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” and Jerry Falwell blaming 9/11 on homosexuality, and Lawrence v. Texas, and Matthew Shepard, tear streaks on bloodied face, his burned body lashed to a barbed-wire fence.

It would be a month before we’d hear that the era of the “pajama boy” was over, but Armand heard it that night. He saw those people, throwing their MAGA hats in the air and spraying champagne around, and he knew what they meant when they were lamenting America’s former greatness – a country where everyone knew their place, where a woman was a mother or a whore, and nothing in between; a black man - a butler or a crackhead, and nothing in between; and a man – Gary Cooper or a sissy… and nothing in between.

And he saw this country coming back, and he was scared of it.

He couldn’t relate to Baldwin’s blackness, but he could understand the isolation he felt in the US, where men weren’t supposed to kiss men and didn’t.

I should’ve seen it, and I missed it. I miscalculated the price tag on the “everything” I was offering him, because our currencies were different. Revolutions are fun when you’re twenty-five and death is just a concept; by the time you’re fifty - _Liberte__́_ sounds great, but guillotine is a fact.

It’s a hell of a journey to get to your Beatrice. I should’ve seen it, I didn’t.

But I felt the pain, because I loved him already and his pain was harder to ignore than my own. And so, when his fingertips slid along my inner thigh, luminescent in its paleness, and he turned and looked, really looked at me, cupped my cheek and drew my face to him, I didn’t gasp, didn’t protest, I wanted it more than anything else in the world.

He leaned closer and I stopped breathing, afraid to spook him, scared he’d come to his senses, remember where we were. He didn’t kiss me, his nose ran along my cheek and he buried his face in my neck.

“Soft…” I felt him smiling and shivered. “So soft…” His hand snaked around my body and pulled me to him. “They soft, too?”

“W-who?”

“Otters,” he murmured.

“Otter…” God, he was wasted. “Yes, I sup-pose,” I replied breathlessly. “The fu… fur is… has t…”

Yes, then he kissed me. Vodka, fear, despair, hunger. At first, mostly vodka, then – mostly hunger.

I didn’t expect how strong he was, but he was a giant, not a Cinderella, and he, apparently, didn’t think I was either, because he squashed my poor diaphragm, trying to get me closer, and gave me a kiss no Disney princess could dream of.

I threw my hands around his neck, holding on, and here it was again – my dear life, my dear life…

Let it go, I wanted to tell him, let it go… I’m here, I’ll catch you… Whatever it is… You want to scream – scream… Scream your kisses into me… I’m here…

My dear life, my dear life…

I felt the shadow of his beard scraping my cheeks, tasted something spicy on his tongue, those hands, marvelous, huge hands were running all over my body, blind, ravenous. I might not remember it all, but I remember I never wanted to be kissed by anyone else in my life.

Anything you want, I can give you, I thought. Anything… everything…

He wasn’t sloppy, but he was in a hurry, and I started stroking his back, his shoulders, wanted him to know I wasn’t going anywhere. It wasn’t really gentle, either, I suppose, but I could give a fuck about gentleness. There would be time for it later.

At first, I thought I was fainting, and then realized that he was pressing me down on the couch, that damn couch where I always knew something like this would happen.

We couldn’t…

No, not here, not now…

If we went down on that couch, we wouldn’t get up – diamonds were melting and fast. But we couldn’t, we couldn’t…

With one hand I levered and pushed us back to more upright position.

“We shou…” I tore my mouth away from his. “Should stop. Not here…” And all the while I was pressing him closer to me, held him fast.

He was breathing hard. I don’t think he understood immediately, he nuzzled my neck again, smiling, murmuring something, his lips wet with mine, warm and tickly. I was stroking his hair and kissed his temple. In a minute or so, I knew it was over, he sighed and straightened slowly.

We looked at each other silently, red flickers from the screen bleeding on our cheeks.

“I should go,” I said.

“Go,” he replied and the corner of his mouth moved. Almost a smile, almost.

I smiled too, I think, got up and saw Estelle, standing three feet away from the couch. I didn’t have time to say anything – she turned around and left without a word. Bur her soundless feet, her blue satin peignoir, flash of pain on her face – I remember them still so vividly.

She loved him. I hadn’t seen that, either.

I glanced at Armand. He was watching her go, then turned away and poured himself another glass. “Go,” he said again and drank it in one swallow.

I did. Returned to Caro’s room and got into bed, she threw her hand around me in her sleep, and I was scared my frantic heartbeat would wake her. No matter how I tried, I didn’t hear anything – the apartment was as silent as if it were an ordinary night, and half an hour later I dozed off too, excitement and alcohol catching up with me.

Next morning, we woke up a different family in a different country.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!


	9. Chapter 9

Where to start? Is there a beginning? If there is, then it’s not in November. Beginning is still those ten minutes, sitting across the table from him, realizing suddenly – it could happen between us, out of all the people in this place who meet and forget each other’s names before dessert, we know that it could happen between us. And November? November is…

It must have happened to you, too – you read a book, watch a movie, hear a story, and you say, “I’d never do something like that!” Won’t betray a friend, won’t steal money, won’t be insensitive, won’t kill an old lady for a handful of coins, won’t… It doesn’t matter, but that’s what separates good stories from mediocre, I suppose – a good one makes you admit that you could. Oh yeah, that’s why they are the hardest to read or hear – good ones insist that the most horrible things done by a human can be recreated by another human easily; in fact, by you. Sometimes, there are mitigating circumstances, of course – war, hunger, revolution, alien invasion, etc. – which allow you to say, “Well, what could I do? Hell, I was following orders…” Or something like that.

But then there are stories where no apocalyptic event or social upheaval push people to wreck each other. And I was in love, you know… And no one died as a result… And I’d do it all differently, if it happened today… And I regret it…

Does it count? Does any of these excuses count?

Insert Lillian Gish’s heart-wrenching face in black and white.

And an eye roll…

Woe is me, right?

God, your profession does a number on you, doesn’t it? I simply can’t help dramatizing it all a bit. Who’d click on “And they lived happily ever after”? Very few. That’s why it’s usually, “You won’t believe what happened to this small family from Tulsa!!! Read and find out!”

Well, nothing happened to it, really. Nothing to merit three exclamation points, at least. They just fucked up, as humans do.

And no, there won’t be any, “Just because I’m telling you this story doesn’t mean I’m alive at the end of it.” Cool, as John Oliver would say, but no, I’m not dead, smashed my pinkie in the fridge door a week ago, but otherwise…

So, yeah, I was right when I said that the world wouldn’t end on November 8, 2016, and it didn’t. Even the US is still there; no matter how much Mexico would wish that it weren’t.

Here is Dostoyevsky to prove my point: “Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything.”

Like, totally.

Fucking A, man. You called it.

You fall for your girlfriend’s father? And nothing, life goes on. Said father kisses you? You thought you’d die – because feelings - but all that happens is that you wake up with a hangover and bad breath, and a million dollar question – now what?

An awkward breakfast, it turns out. Nothing worse. No one is able to look at anyone else, aspirin is distributed and hastily consumed, and then you go to work, because even though we’ve been trying to change it for years, elections in America are still held on Tuesdays, Trump or no Trump.

So, you wake up, and it’s Wednesday. _No matter how many skies have fallen._

Armand couldn’t look me in the eye, Estelle didn’t want to and Caro didn’t need to. The best part was that the breakfast was brief, because I barely touched my coffee when I got a text from Stanley: “Get your ass here. ASAP!”

The country didn’t stop for my messy love life to be put in order, so I sniffed my yesterday’s shirt discreetly and sprinted to the office, where chaos reigned. Every major publication had two versions of November 9 issue, depending on the winner. _Newsweek_ fucked up and sent to print the one we thought we’d be sending to – congratulating Hillary on becoming the first female president – we didn’t, but it didn’t mean we were completely prepared to deal with Trump’s victory, either.

Was it another moment where we could change something, start healing, come to terms with each other and wasted it? I don’t know. Maybe that Rubicon had been already crossed by that time, maybe there was no other way to treat Trump, but as another loss in a prolonged cold civil war that’d been going on in our country. Maybe.

And even if we tried to change the narrative by that point, could we? I doubt it. For too long then, it had been “godless baby-killers” against “racist rednecks,” so when the latter won, we, the presumably godless, had no choice but to frame it as a “revenge of working-class whites.”

You get caught in your own story, you started writing it, true, but it gets away, grows, evolves and finally captures you – you used to measure the perimeter, and now the walls are doing it to you.

We could call it a “stunning victory,” because objectively it was – but we called it a “stunning upset,” because that’s how we saw it. The end begins with the first chapter, you don’t need to be Joyce to figure it out.

Can we go back? I hope so. We don’t have a choice, anyway. But for that we must stop playing this zero-sum game, which is appropriate for war, and remember that even the most contentious topics can and should be discussed, that you don’t need to love or even approve of someone’s choice in life to be able to live next door to them. It’s by kicking down those doors and force-feeding opinions to each other that we’ve got to the place we’re at.

West is best – Cornel West, that is – read him for more elaborate instructions; I, great theoretician that I am, had turned my private life into a raging dumpster fire by November, so I should probably get off the soapbox.

A warning to the idealists – the story doesn’t get better from here on, it gets weirder. Trump got elected and now is being impeached, or just about to – so if there is an expectation that, after my kiss with Armand, we sat around the table, the four of us, discussed it like adults - tears in our eyes and tons of mutual compassion - and sorted it out, then no, that’s not what happened.

I mean, everyone said to Adolf, “Leave Poland alone. Build autobahns, write shitty non-fiction, peddle your watercolors. Like, we can look the other way with Czechoslovakia, but… Be reasonable, man!”

He couldn’t help himself, he just couldn’t. Next thing you know – German tanks are in Warsaw and the civilization is going down the drain.

(Ok, it’s not funny. I take it seriously, I promise you. Me and Dustin, we aren’t exactly Arian types - we wouldn’t have fared well there; so I take it seriously.) 

And, ah, I’m doing it again, I know. WWII comparison? Dramatic much? Sorry, sorry. When I say that we didn’t sit and talk it over, I don’t mean to imply that next we started gunning each other down. No, when I say that I’m not dead, I should probably add that neither is anyone else: Estelle’s fine, Caro’s fine, Armand is great and still pretty as fuck.

Why didn’t Estelle say something that morning? I can’t know for sure – and we aren’t exactly friends, so I can’t ask her – but I suspect she was simply cautious. What would she gain by telling Caro that her father was after her boyfriend? Nothing. Caro would’ve probably thought she was deranged, and their relationship with Armand would’ve ended too, because he wouldn’t have appreciated her involving his daughter into this.

Estelle is no fool, as I said, so, even if she looked at me once or twice like she wanted to slap me, she simply couldn’t do it, and one of the things that come with adulthood is discipline – instant gratification is for children, she knew it. Creating a scene and embarrassing me would’ve worked short-term, but that’s not how you win a war; so she sat across the table from me, gritted her teeth and didn’t say a word.

Or maybe she understood her boyfriend better than I did at the time, so she knew she had nothing to worry about. Maybe it wasn’t discipline at all that stopped her from slapping me, just contempt.

Anyway, I should’ve been alarmed by her silence, and I wasn’t. I interpreted it as her being polite, grown-up, restrained. I’m joking about this discussion that the four of us could have had, but in truth, at the time I thought something like this would eventually take place, because I couldn’t imagine that we’d go on as if nothing happened.

And I was naïve, and optimistic, and in love. And not yet twenty-five, while he was already fifty, so I left his apartment that morning, sure that it wouldn’t be lunch yet, when he’d call me and say that we needed to talk. I’d flirt a bit, then say yes, and we’d go to a nice quiet place, choose a table at the back and finally speak to each other honestly. We’d acknowledge that the situation was delicate and that it’d take tact and time to untangle it. He’d say that he was fond of Estelle, but didn’t really love her; though, no matter what, he didn’t want to see her hurt. And I’d confess that I adored Caro for a long time, but it had ended, and assure him that it wasn’t his fault. “Of course, you aren’t a homewrecker,” I’d say, “don’t blame yourself, things happen. But she’ll understand, trust me, she’ll understand. We just need to give her time…” And he’d hold my hand, and look me in the eye, and be overcome with…

Ah, I don’t know with what. What are people usually overcome with in such preposterous scenarios? Gratitude? Hope? Love?

I realize how outlandish it all sounds, how stunningly Pollyannaish, but if anyone was overcome then, it was me. All you need is love, I thought, and we had love, and it would be enough. I couldn’t imagine that it wasn’t.

So I wasn’t really panicking when he didn’t call me that day. He must be dealing with Estelle, I decided. I need to be patient, need to give him time.

And when there was no call the next day either, I dismissed my worries as childish and started thinking what to do with Caro, because Armand wasn’t the only one who had a nasty breakup on the horizon – I had to find the words to explain to my girlfriend that I was leaving her for her father, and no relationship advice column that I read provided a guide for safe landing there.

But what about Caro herself? What was she doing while I applied for citizenship on cloud nine and had it granted? Well, my girlfriend was stressed about the election, naturally, and spent long hours working, losing clients left and right, because they were afraid to go through legal channels now, when the president-elect had declared that we only needed the “best people” here; so some pesky civil war or gang violence in your country probably weren’t enough to justify your presence on our soil. Who were the “best people” wasn’t explicitly clear, but it was widely suspected that they should be as white as possible.

Scotland? Come in, come in. Nigeria? Um, wait in line.

All in all, Caro didn’t have much time for me those days, and I sort of went along with it.

Ok, no, I didn’t. I was just a coward, waiting for her to do the work for me. It’s so nice when a girlfriend you don’t love anymore shows you the door, isn’t it? And so easy, too. You can even pretend to be heartbroken over it, for both your sakes. She’ll feel a bit guilty, you’ll feel greatly relieved, and if her father isn’t involved, you two can even stay friends after that, or at least on speaking terms.

In truth, I was so obsessed with Armand not calling and imaginary Caro leaving me, that I didn’t pay attention to the real one, though I should have. That unpleasant conversation on election night affected us both, but I only thought about myself, I didn’t consider that she could have feelings about it too or what those feelings were.

Love makes you blind. First of all, towards other people. It’s not that they stop existing for you, just that their existence transforms into neatly cut puzzle pieces, in perfect accordance with the picture you have in your head.

If they fit – great.

If they don’t – their problem.

No, of course, you don’t think like that - if you did, you’d be an asshole - but you act like that, because, frankly, you just don’t have time for this yesterday’s news: you’ve moved on already, if your girlfriend didn’t get the memo, tough.

So it’s rather “just cause I’m telling this story, doesn’t mean I’m a _hero_ here.” But I want to be honest, warts and all, I don’t see the point otherwise; and part of it is recognizing the stuff you can’t be proud of.

What, I didn’t give a damn about Caro?

No. Or not explicitly. I cared. I truly did, but I cared about Armand not calling me more.

“I think I left one of my notebooks at your father’s place,” I told Caro, when we met that evening. It was a week or so after the election. “Do you think I could call him… come pick it up?”

“Wait until next week,” she shook her head. “He’s out of town.”

“Something happened?” I frowned.

“No,” she shrugged, “as far as I know, nothing. Took Estelle to Barbados, that’s all.”

“Barbados?” I repeated stupidly.

“Life goes on,” she smiled sadly. “Some people still have time for love. That’s good, I guess.”

“Love?” I stared at her.

“Was it something important?” she looked at me sympathetically. “I could call his cleaning lady, she’d search for it.”

I wasn’t even listening.

Barbados?

With Estelle?

He… left?

“Tim, what is it?” Caro stopped, because I did. I couldn’t remember the street we were on, the date, the year. “It’s no trouble. I’ll call her right now…”

“Call whom?” I blinked.

“Lupita, about your notebook.”

Something was blurring my vision, I looked up and a fat snowflake landed in my eye. So, maybe it wasn’t tears, maybe it was just melted snow on my cheeks.

“Tim?” Caro took my hand. “You alright?”

“Don’t call anyone,” I swallowed. Her face and her voice seemed miles away. “Don’t call… It’s winter, Caro,” I said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t know it was winter already. When… did it happen?”

We’d been together long enough for her to understand that I wasn’t talking about the weather. Maybe she thought it finally dawned on me, what happened in our country, a sort of delayed grief, pain that you don’t feel until you see bruises in the mirror.

“It’s not the end of the world,” she returned my words to me. “It’s only sleet.”

“But it feels like the end,” I whispered. “It really feels like it…”

“Yes, it does,” she touched my cheek. “Good thing then you know how to survive a snowstorm.”

Do I? I thought and hugged her to me. Do I?

The fine print that people rarely read, before getting on cloud nine, states that no parachutes will be provided: when you fall, you fall. And you don’t land on a white beach in Barbados, but on windy Madison Street, across from a Chinese laundromat.

How could he do this to me?

How can you do this to someone who loves you?

Last Tuesday I gave you my heart…

God, if Caro wasn’t with me, I think I would’ve gotten down on the sidewalk and just sat there, staring at gray asphalt. And I was waiting for his call… I was… I had dreams… and he didn’t care… he didn’t care about me… at all… he…

Big city, a blessing and a curse, you cry on the subway, and no one notices. Or maybe they do and simply look away, scared to get involved, as if pain is contagious. I didn’t miss my station, didn’t get off on the Brooklyn Bridge, I arrived home, hugged the lukewarm radiator and continued crying, until my eyes burned.

Everything was there – disillusionment, loss, anger, wounded pride, love, disbelief.

How could he do this to me?

And how could I be so foolish not to expect it?

My god, he must have had them before, I gasped. How many? How many lovers went through his bed? He was married for what, about fifteen years, of course, he had them before. Used and discarded them, while preserving his impeccable façade intact. Such a pretty face – core so rotten.

But that’s what they are used to, I guessed, people like him. And you’re the schmuck here, because if you get involved with a person leading a double life – you pay double. Who cares about your feelings? Who cares that you have them?

I wanted to give him so much… I wanted… and he…

Tears started again.

He’d been laughing at me the whole time, I saw it now. If I hadn’t stopped him that night, he’d have fucked me… and left for Barbados. Probably buy a new bracelet for his girlfriend to sweeten her up.

What did he tell her? Oh, honey, it didn’t mean anything - flesh is weak, you know? I swear I didn’t even see who it was and didn’t care. Let’s go have some sun and forget about this unfortunate episode. The boy won’t bother you, I promise, he’s just a piece of ass from Bumfuck, Nowhere. Don’t think about him. Who gives a shit?

As they say, you can’t call hunting a sport, because one team doesn’t know that the game is going on. How ridiculous I was, how humiliatingly ridiculous… All fawn…

I looked at myself, and the pain exploded in my chest again. He didn’t love me. He never ever… Why would he love something like this? He could buy it for 50 bucks an hour under any bridge or behind any bar.

Only an idiot like me would see a martyr in a bon vivant. I thought myself Mme de Tourvel, redeeming a fallen man through love, or some shit like that, but it was the part of the stupid ingénue who gets fucked that I was playing.

God, I wanted to stop crying already.

Over what?

Over whom?

I didn’t cry this much when my grandma died, I remembered and was ashamed. He didn’t love me, he only wanted me, and that only behind closed doors, in between his book parties and soirees.

I didn’t doubt for a second that he’d return and shake my hand - that almost smile on his lips - as if everything was fine. Then the lying game would continue, and after some time, I’d accept it. And eventually I’d learn to be like him, composing my face, wrapping myself in permafrost, quoting people I didn’t have the guts to be; and if an ounce of honesty was left, I’d stop writing, too: white silence – the only true thing in my paper-thin soul.

Step by step, I’d end up in a life I never wanted to have. Bitter and envious of the people who dared. All my dreams – memories of the flowers, once bright, now sickly away from the sun.

Oh no, _sweetheart_, oh no. You’ve messed with the wrong boy this time. You forgot – you may not love _me_, but I have something _you_ love. I can play, too, you know? And on fields like this only zero-sum games are working.

I let go of the radiator, brushed off the dust from my sleeves and went for my phone. Let’s see, if I can still get your attention.

Now, my first thought was to send my whole message thread with him to Caro. There was nothing explicit there, but the timestamps would certainly make her wonder, would prompt her to ask questions, and…

BOOM!

I almost did it, but at the last moment those few shreds of decency that survived my rage feat somehow won. Caro had nothing to do with it. Hurting her would be gratuitous and unfair, and wouldn’t make me feel any better.

Besides, I read enough stories of revenge porn to understand that it was the gutter level I never wanted to find myself on. I couldn’t out him to his daughter. It wasn’t so much about him – I knew I’d never forgive _myself_ if I did this.

But I was onto something there. For better or worse, this was the only weapon I had, and the meek were promised the earth, but the strong intercepted the letter and burned it – he’d never care about my pain, until he felt it.

I looked around for inspiration, a thought was flickering in my mind – one second there, another gone… I was pretty sure I came upon it before, I was…

I got it suddenly.

Now, this’ll blow up your nice vacation, Armand. Oh, I’m sure it will.

“Mr. Hammer,” I started typing and smiled, “being a traditional guy, I simply couldn’t skip this step…” I frowned, “…this step in our relationship.”

Yes, that’s right. Our “fucked-up relationship” would be more to the point, but it would contradict the style.

“I hope you’ll forgive my chosen way of communication,” I continued, “but given…” I wanted to write “the circumstances,” then thought of something else. “Given my _softness_ of character,” I smirked, “and your imposing presence, I don’t believe I could say this, being face to face with you.”

I read it all. It sounded good. Suitably intriguing.

“Dear Mr. Hammer,” I wrote, then deleted it. “_Dearest _Mr. Hammer…”

_I hope a shark will bite you in your juicy ass…_

No, I didn’t, I calmed down significantly by then.

“Dearest Mr. Hammer,” I sighed, “I’m asking for your blessing to propose marriage to Caroline. I understand that it might seem sudden to you, but please, believe my sincerity - I’m quite sure that,” I paused and grinned, “that I could give everything to your daughter and she could give me everything in return.”

Still breathing, dearest?

“I don’t want to interrupt your vacation,” I snorted, “but as a man in love yourself, you must realize how anxiously I’m waiting for your reply.” You fucking hypocrite! “Exploding into a thousand little Dalmatians, so to speak.”

What else?

“Hope Barbados is treating you well. Don’t forget sunscreen and get back to us soon.”

Next flight would be ideal.

“P.S. forgive the punctuation, if it’s faulty – jitters, you know?”

Press “Send.”

“Send” pressed.

I worship Jon Stewart. If this nation has conscience, that’s Jon. And the wit, and the brains. My personal favorite? “Turn to the person to your right aaand… sodomize them!”

I didn’t know exactly what direction Barbados was, but falling for a giant ass turns you into a dick, so the measures seemed appropriate.

(I didn’t mention it before, but I guess it should be clarified – I was stone sober while I was writing it. Hadn’t had a drop all that day. Just for the record.)

Ten minutes passed, then thirty. No reply followed.

I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t worried to the point that I put away my phone and went searching for some dinner in the fridge. All this crying made me ravenous.

Caro would call later and ask me how I was feeling. I huskily promised to take some Tylenol and made a mental note to buy her flowers the next day. I’d been a shitty boyfriend lately, to put it mildly, and she needed to be cheered up amidst all this post-election gloom. So I did – Thanksgiving was coming, and I’d planned to fly home for the holidays, but I decided on the cheapest airline and spent the rest on a huge bouquet of roses, interspersed with some other expensive smelly stuff, which assuaged my conscience significantly and made my girlfriend laugh for the first time in days.

But what about Armand? Think my little missive sent him running to the airport? You bet it did. He even forgot his flip-flops in the hotel, as I’d find out later.

Three days and he was home. God, I’d have given a week of my life to see Estelle’s face when he told her they had to interrupt their idyllic getaway and rush back to the city, and all because of me. Still, three days weren’t exactly “next flight” – he languished there longer than I’d given him credit for – so, when he finally arrived, I was pissed again. I expected some anguish, sleepless nights, shadows under haunted eyes. I wanted him hugging a radiator, swallowing tears; if they had radiators in Barbados, that is.

Well, if he did, he didn’t sound like it.

“Get your ass down here,” he said calmly, calling me in my office. “I’m waiting.”

“Here where?” I smiled.

“In the lobby of your building,” he replied. “Now, Timothée.”

I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did, but I knew enough to conclude that he wouldn’t create a scandal in the lobby of the _Washington Post_. Few closeted people would. So I took my jacket and went. There was an elevator coming, but I chose the stairs – walking is good for blood pressure, after all, and letting him stew there wasn’t an unpleasant thought either.

The bastard looked good. Sun-kissed, damn his soul.

Camel coat, dark blue suit, shiny black shoes.

No matter how I tried I couldn’t imagine him hugging a radiator and sobbing. There are people impervious to this image – Henry Kissinger, for example.

“Let’s go,” he said briskly and started walking away.

I followed, mostly out of curiosity. He never once turned to look if I did - the cocky scoundrel knew I would. We passed my office, crossed the street and ended up in Thomas Paine Park, because he was prepared to dish out some and because a stinky alleyway wasn’t at hand, I guess.

The place looked sad, wet empty benches and stripped trees. Rare humans breezed by, eyes to their various screens, not interested in the two of us in the slightest.

He stopped under a big maple and turned to me, folding his arms. “I’m listening.”

“Me too,” I mirrored his pose.

He sighed. “How could you do this?”

“How could you leave?” I sneered. “Without even talking to me?”

“There was nothing to say.”

“Nothing to say?” I was incredulous. “Oh, right… Right. I didn’t deserve even some change on a nightstand. Didn’t do enough to earn it, I guess.”

“I don’t like your insinuation.”

“Sorry,” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s be blunt then – what makes you think I’m one of your whores?”

“I didn’t, but if you insist on being treated like one - by all means. Only I suggest you quit the theatrics and start speaking like an adult, if you’re capable of it.”

“Sure,” I shrugged. “How was Barbados?”

“God gracious…” he rubbed his forehead. “And if marry her, what’ll you do then? Pull a David Axelrod and set my apartment on fire?”

He didn’t even _look_ furious, mostly disappointed and tired. As if I broke a vase in his house, expensive, but not exactly irreplaceable. An unfortunate incident, but nothing to interrupt the dinner over.

“I don’t mean anything to you, do I?” I whispered.

“What does it matter _now_?”

“Everything,” I told him honestly. “I thought I’d hate even the sight of you… and I can’t. It’s incredible what you let people do to you, when you love them – I’d let you do it all over again, if you kissed me again. That’s worse than a whore, probably. At least, they have _some_ dignity.”

“You don’t know what you want,” he sounded frustrated. “I asked you but you don’t know, that’s your trouble. And selfishness, of course. I forgot how selfish youth can be.”

“_I’m_ selfish?” I got angry. “I offer to turn my whole life upside down for you - just ask! And you think _I’m_ selfish?”

“You’re unbelievable…” he shook his head. “Offer? You get in my bed, while your girlfriend - my _daughter_! - is in the next room. You don’t give a fuck about me or about her, and you expect me to, what, melt in admiration of your bravery?” He paused and took a deep breath, “What do you want? An affair? You can tell me. If I were a better father, I’d punch you… But I’m not. So… tell me.”

“No, I don’t want an affair! I want… It’s not true! It’s not the way you see it – I care about Caro, I always cared about her. I never wanted to hurt her… I didn’t know what to do! Why can’t you understand it? I never… I never thought it’d happen to me, something like that. Like you. Like… I didn’t even know I liked men before I met you…”

He softened a bit. “It’ll pass,” he looked at his shoes. “It’s almost natural at your age – strong father figu…”

“Jesus,” I interrupted him, “I don’t have daddy issues. It’s not about that. It’s not about your age or mine. I don’t need you to discipline me or teach me how to get my shit together. I don’t want… I want… I want what two men can have… when they love each other… when… I want that,” I looked at him.

“That’s not possible between us, Timothée,” he said gently.

“But why the hell not?” I barely stopped myself from stomping my foot, then it became clear. “Because you don’t love me… Of course.”

He looked away and smiled. “I do, actually.” He said it, as if he himself was surprised to hear it. “It’s so strange… I do.”

I was paralyzed suddenly. If a flying saucer landed ten feet away, I don’t think I’d be this stunned. “You… do?”

He snorted. “Yes. Isn’t it the worst?”

“Worst?.. No! It’s… You love me!” I grinned. “I thought you just wanted… well, only… go to bed with me.” Was I blushing? “But you want that too, right?”

He raised an eyebrow, let me squirm some more, then, “Yes, that too.”

“Good,” I nodded. “It’s good when things are mutual.”

“It’s even better when they are attainable.”

“You’re just a foot away,” I winked.

“Yes, and you’re a breath away from becoming my son-in-law.”

“Only if I marry your daughter,” I took a step forward, grasped the lapels of his coat and looked up. “Don’t piss me off, and I won’t,”

He frowned and was thinking about something. “Oh, I think I understand,” he nodded. “Jesus Christ…”

“Yes,” I laughed. “Be a good old boy, and I won’t ask her.”

He cocked his head and looked at me strangely. “You already did.”

“What do you mean?”

“She is going to say yes, by the way,” he gently squeezed my wrists, took a step back and I was left grasping air.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

“I thought you’ve figured it out by now,” he sighed. “Check your phone.”

“What for?”

“Humor me.”

I got out my phone. “And?”

“Go to that ludicrous message you sent.”

Suddenly my heart gave a violent lurch. I had no idea what he was hinting at, but his face in no way betrayed some practical joke coming. “Yeah, ok. Here. So?” I looked at him.

“Look at the addressee’s name.”

“Caro’s dad,” I huffed. “I haven’t changed it, sorry.”

“You’re looking at me,” he smiled sadly. “Look at the screen.”

I did. “What? Caro’s dad! I told y…”

No, it wasn’t.

Caro, I read.

I looked up at him.

Got back to the screen.

“But it’s…”

Oh god… Oh my… I was going to send our messages with him to her… I must have… Oh… god

“Look…”

“I was instructed to give you my blessing,” he interrupted quietly. “You have it.”

“What are you… This is insane!” I cried and a passing woman jumped, startled. “You lost your mind?”

“Welcome to adulthood,” he folded his arms.

“What fucking adulthood?” I was furious, because I was scared shitless. “I won’t marry her! And she wouldn’t want me to, anyway!”

“She forwarded it to me yesterday evening, Timothée,” he said it as if it meant something. “She had time to think about it. She’s going to say yes.”

I remembered my bouquet of roses and almost threw up. I gave it to her the next day. She’d already read this insane text, she thought…

“Do something!” I demanded.

“What do you want me to do?” he shrugged. “If I intervene, she’ll marry you tomorrow. My track record isn’t the best…”

“I…” I had trouble breathing. “I’m not a… husband material…”

“Oh, don’t I know it?” it didn’t sound very compassionate.

“I’ll ruin her life!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he chuckled. “If Beth and I couldn’t do it, I doubt you’ll succeed.”

“Armand, she doesn’t love me. I swear to you! It’s a mistake. She probably hasn’t dumped me yet, only because she needs a plus one for her friend’s wedding in December. She doesn’t love me!”

“Yes, she does,” he nodded.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Yes, Timothée.”

I had no idea two simple words could stop the world.

He grabbed me suddenly. Probably because I was on the verge of fainting. I pressed my forehead to his chest. He hesitated and put his arms around me, his soft cashmere coat caressing my cheek.

“I’ll explain to her. I’ll tell her the truth,” I muttered.

“If you do it, I’ll lose my daughter,” he replied calmly. “You must realize, I’ll never forgive you for that.”

“There must be a way out…” I looked up at him desperately.

His eyes travelled over my face, he leaned down and kissed my forehead, not saying anything.

“But you love me!” I swallowed. “You love me!”

He nodded, and his embrace tightened slightly. I’d never felt so happy and so hopeless at once.

“Ok,” I nodded, “ok. I’ll marry her, we’ll divorce in two months. Three, at best. And you can… if you wait… then we can… Surely, she won’t have any objection after we’re divorced,” I glanced at him. “We won’t have kids, of course. We never talked about… No, there won’t be any kids, so it’ll make things simpler. I mean, it’ll seem weird to some, but who gives a fuck? Just don’t marry Estelle,” I grabbed his lapels and shook him for good measure. “Promise me! You owe me. If I… You owe me! Don’t marry Estelle!”

“I won’t,” he smiled.

“Good,” I burrowed my face in his shirt again. “That’s good. Will make things simpler. And then… after the divorce… well, it’ll be a couple of awkward Christmases, sure, but… You love dogs, right?” I looked up. “We could have a dog.”

“We could,” he smiled.

“We will,” I promised.

He didn’t reply.

“I’ll cheat on her!” I said brightly. “It’ll speed things up!”

“No, you won’t,” he shook his head.

“Why?”

“Because I’ll cut off your balls, if you cheat on my daughter.”

“Is it jealousy or…”

“It is,” his hand slid into my hair and he started scratching my scalp soothingly. “It is…”

“Just don’t stop loving me,” I whispered. “Just don’t stop while… just…”

“I won’t.”

Did he know what he was doing? He was holding me like a lover, in broad daylight, in the middle of Manhattan. Anyone could see us. Did he know?

I put my arms around him, under the coat, then sneaked under his jacket, too, and was stroking his back. He was so big, so warm. If we only ever had this… I thought again and cursed the thought. Don’t say things like this, they turn into self-fulfilling prophecies before you know it.

Moments… I considered myself so smart - all this nonsense about moments! – and I missed the one that derailed my life.

She loved me… No, how could it be? We’d been drifting apart for months. If she still loved me, I would know. But would I? So obsessed with my own feelings, would I? The puzzle pieces in my head all fit together so nicely – I overlooked the picture they were slowly revealing.

He was right, I was selfish. I started ascribing desired behavior to the people around me – Caro would understand, Estelle would quietly go away, my parents would accept, Armand would just miraculously come out of the closet for me.

And now my girlfriend thought I was going to propose to her, because I threw a temper tantrum and couldn’t wait for Armand to return and talk to me.

Poor Caro… God, poor Caro… The pain she’d feel if she ever found out that marrying her was a joke to me, a cruel jab at her dad.

Once you start lying, you begin writing a story for yourself that rarely leads to a happy ending. All the scandals I read about and covered, all of them started like this – someone lied, to their spouses, their constituents, their board members, their neighbors. So innocent at first, just a trifle, maybe not even a lie, only silence, truth being omitted, and then – Flint water crisis, Clinton’s impeachment, Schwarzenegger’s divorce.

I remembered then that Caro had invited me to her apartment for dinner that night. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but now I realized it wouldn’t be just any date.

She was expecting me to…

That’s why he was here…

Oh, God, tonight – I thought I had so much time, and suddenly…

“Let’s go to a hotel,” I looked up at him and said urgently. “There are dozens of them around. Just for a couple of hours. You can… We… I’m not yet your… We have time… It’s not the best, I know it’s not the best, but I… It has to be you, it has to be with you. I dreamed so many times… Please! Please!”

He stroked my cheek. “No.”

“Please! Why? Please…”

“One day, when you have children, you’ll understand,” he kissed my brow.

“Noooo…” I moaned. “No. I don’t want… I want you. Please!”

“Don’t cry,” he brushed away the tear from my cheek and something in his face changed. “God, how exquisite you are…” he whispered. “How… achingly beautiful. Maybe one day, you’ll meet someone, and you’ll do everything right this time. Because you’re a good man, I know it, regardless of the circum…”

“No!” I pushed him away violently, took a step back and wiped my eyes. “No!” I pointed. “Don’t give me this crap! I’ll do everything right _this time_ – I’ll marry her and she’ll never find out, I promise; but when it’s over, I’ll come back for you… Don’t shake your head! I’ll come back for you, and you won’t have any excuses to hide behind then. There is only one real question here – do you want to be with me or not? So you better start searching for the answer now, becau…

“Don’t marry anyone else and don’t die. I don’t give a fuck about the rest, just do this. We’ll talk again,” I promised and started walking backwards. “Don’t die,” I sniffed, “and see ya…” If I didn’t believe it, I don’t think I’d be able to leave him there that day.

Now it was true, there was nothing else to say. I turned around and ran, wind like ice on my tear-streaked cheeks. There were surprisingly few cars around, so I crossed on red light and continued running, until I got to the _Post_. Someone asked me what was wrong and I laughed, slightly hysterical. Where to begin?

“I’m getting married,” I said. “She said yes. She’s going to…”

There were frowning congratulations and some eye rolls. Stanley clapped me on the shoulder, but, looking at each other, we quickly decided that a hug was too much; so he added a fatherly squeeze, waited until I winced and thought his mission over.

As any self-respecting hack, I had a spare clean shirt in the office, so I went to the bathroom, washed my face and changed. There was another batch of documents I had to go through, before the day was over, that would keep my mind occupied for the time being. Good. It was after three, Caro was waiting for me at eight.

I’ll think about it tomorrow, I said to myself. Whatever it is - tomorrow. 

New York State Assembly had an election in November, too. Democrats gained two new seats, Republicans – one. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, so no one really noticed that it happened at all, and I had to write my obligatory three paragraphs about this non-event. I did, mostly concentrating on that one more Republican. Horror, horror! New York was turning red…

I had no idea how to propose to someone who technically already agreed. Get on one knee? Buy flowers? Are feminists ok with this knee thing? Is it patriarchal, too?

But then, Caro seemed ok with this whole blessing nonsense, and you couldn’t go more patriarchal than that. What about flowers, though? No, the bouquet I’d given her earlier was probably still fresh. Some sweets then? Chocolates? Eclairs? Muffins? Fuck, who brings muffins to a proposal?

Then I remembered a balloon store three blocks from her apartment. Cute. Not too formal, not too irreverent. A huge red heart on a string, hold it fast – hearts are fickle.

They had it, of course. Big and glittering. “I ♥ you” on both sides. I frowned. How peculiar life can be – it was true and it wasn’t at the same time.

“May I help you?” the guy behind the counter asked.

“Going to propose to my girlfriend,” I told him.

“You could spell it, I think we have all the letters,” he suggested.

“No,” I shook my head. “That’s a bit too much.”

“Well, there is this, too,” he opened one of the boxes and retrieved another heart, this one golden. “Marry ME!” it said.

I read this ME and snorted. I didn’t want it to be _me_ exactly, but welcome to adulthood – time when words have consequences.

“I’ll take it,” I nodded, and he filled it for me.

People on the street smiled when they saw it.

“Do it, man!” some guy saluted, and I heard a soft photo click from a group of teenage girls. There were giggles when they noticed me looking at them.

Soooo cute.

I smiled back.

Concierge in Caro’s building wished me luck, the artistic type from two floors down made a face – so cliché. I wrapped the string around my wrist and started mounting the stairs. We made out here a couple of times, I remembered, when climbing another floor seemed an eternity that we couldn’t survive. Only months earlier… God, in another life.

She was wearing red. Another thing I’ll remember for the rest of my life – Caro in that bell skirt dress, framed by the doorway, pretty as a doll, blushing suddenly.

Neither of us knew what to say, so I just gave her the balloon and she covered her mouth with her hand and blushed harder.

“You’ve seen my father,” she said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“It was so dorky,” she smiled. “Your text.”

“Should I?” I motioned at the floor uncertainly.

“Oh, no, no… no,” she replied.

Bullshit, I thought. Of course, you want me to. What girl wouldn’t?

Before she could protest further, I got on one knee, looked up at her and asked, “Caroline Hammer, will you marry me? It’d be… an honor to share my life with you.”

She started laughing and choked, and oh god, she probably did love me in that moment. How little we know each other, even being this close.

“Yes,” she bit her lip. “Yes…”

“You sure?” I asked seriously.

“Yes,” she repeated. “I’m sure.”

And again we didn’t know what to do.

“I made tagliatelle,” she said, that balloon still in her hand. “You like it, right?”

“Right,” I nodded from the floor.

“No, not true,” she shook her head. “I _bought _tagliatelle, from the restaurant on the corner.”

“Even better,” I smiled.

“Jerk,” she bumped my shoulder, laughing, and I concluded it was time to get up.

A table was set in the kitchen. No candles, but a napkin swan on each plate, which, I assumed, flew here from the same place the food did. I don’t think we were this painfully awkward around each other on our first date, as we were that night.

“Were you offended?” I asked later. “That I wrote to your father… It’s not typical, I guess.”

“Well, I…” she frowned and took a moment to think. “I owe you an apology, Tim,” she said suddenly.

“An apology?” I blinked. “For what?”

“I had no right to say… what I said that day. After the election. I…”

“Caro, please, it’s…”

“No, no,” she stopped me. “No, I need to say it. I had no right. And I felt horrible afterwards, because I realized… I realized that I behaved just the way people think snobbish liberals do. I was unfair and… I want to meet your parents, Tim. I want to see your town and… It’s very sad what’s happening in our country, but we can’t let it get between us,” she took my hand. “Dad said I was lucky to find a guy like you – he’s right. I just got distracted by all this… mess and forgot it.”

My throat hurt. “He said it? Your dad…”

“Yes,” she nodded. “He likes you a lot, actually.”

_I do, actually_, I remembered and felt a bit sick.

“Did he say anything else?”

“Mostly he wanted to know if I felt in any way pressured to say yes. Because, well… It’s hard to turn down a marriage proposal,” she smiled.

“Do you? Feel pressured?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I didn’t think anything could make me happy this November, but this did. And Mom gave you a thumbs-up, by the way,” Caro chuckled, “_and _sent me the contacts of her lawyer. So be careful – Dad is still paying alimony.”

“Welcome to adulthood…” I nodded and reached for the wine.

We raised a couple of toasts, finished our tagliatelle and fed each other baklava, which turned out to be part of the menu, too, then there was some dancing to Adele, whom I never suspected of being able to write a cheerful song and wasn’t far off.

_It was just like a movie, it was just like a song _with some _You can take my name, but you’ll never have my heart _slipping through the cracks, only one of us knew were there.

Red dress ended up on the floor, in what Caro generously called her living room, right beside my fresh shirt, and we made love. You can still make love, I found out, even when you think there is none of it left.

I have no idea what he did. He was probably too ashamed to get drunk over this, so no, I don’t know what he did. I never asked him.

No one dies in this story, as I said. You don’t die from growing up, just change the soundtrack: in the beginning, there is no place in your life for Leonard Cohen; and sometimes there is nothing else left by the end.

Just days before, Barack Obama welcomed Donald and Melania to the White House. You catch it below the belt, double over - vision all black spots, pulse jacked - then swallow back the blood, adjust your tie and show them how it’s done: “We now are going to do everything we can to help you succeed, because if you succeed, then the country succeeds.”

Shoulders straight, hands steady, and slowly, slowly – invisible to the cameras - your heart starts stitching itself back together. Boys to men in one election cycle, and all that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you! These two words aren't enough, probably, but I mean it - thank you for taking the time to read this.
> 
> Correction: in the previous chapter, there was a mistake. Titanic sank on April 14, not April 12. For some reason the date April 14, 1912, turns into April 12, 1914, in my head. It's embarrassing and I should've caught it. So, thank you once again for putting up with things like this.


	10. Chapter 10

Scared of growing up?

Don’t be.

If you were born between 1981 and 1996, and hence a millennial like me, don’t be. Won’t happen to you. I mean, they’ll try to drag you into this “adulthood,” and you’ll feel very guilty that you can’t march into it on your own, but in the end, to appease everyone around you, you’ll just post a photo of a rickety IKEA bookcase, assembled with duct tape and glue, to your Instagram, hashtag it _adulting _and return to bingeing _Friends _on Netflix, tired beyond belief and very proud of your achievement.

We don’t do adulthood in this country - we just imitate British accent when it suits us. We’re simply too young to be old, know what I mean?

No?

Look, we invented Scientology, beer helmets and king size everything, sell military-grade weapons to 18-year-olds, spend billions on porn and teach abstinence-only sex education, obsess over every new healing technique and hate everyone who says our deep dish pizzas will kill us faster and more surely than any al-Qaeda. More than 70 percent have been to Disneyland, and about half have never heard of Auschwitz; so, unsurprisingly, 77 percent believe in angels, but can’t name even one of their State Senators. I rest my case.

No, we don’t practice adulthood here, and thank god for that, because if we did, I’d already have a wife, and who knows what else. Maybe even a European healthcare plan. No, my ancestors knew where they were heading when they left the Old World behind and fled to these shores – spiritually, I’m home. And as Barack said, in no other country on Earth would my story even be possible.

(Ok, I know he wasn’t talking about falling for his father-in-law, but… there are still places where I’d be beheaded, if I pulled something like this. So I think it fits. Sort of.)

Take this perpetual adolescence and add some millennial burnout, and you’ll have a gerund generation – we are always _going to _and _getting something_. No Great War, no Great Depression – they used up all the verbs, so we malfunction as nouns.

Example #1 Caro had a stain on the ceiling, in the corner of her bedroom. You could see it from the bed, and it was often mentioned that something should be done about it – like, it should be painted over “or something.” This stain had appeared in her life long before I did, and in November of 2016 it was still there, though no one talked about getting rid of it anymore.

Example #2 My mom sent me a box of winter clothes in the beginning of September. There was a plastic container with roasted beechnuts there. I took out and ate the nuts – the box itself was still standing by the front door, where I left it the day I brought it home, and I tripped over it every two-three days, telling myself, I’d unpack it soon. In November, it was still there and I had no idea what was in it.

So, when it came to marriage, I admit I was scared for a time, knowing that it takes just three days to get hitched in New York, but soon I remembered who we were and relaxed.

Yes, we discussed that we’d probably need a different apartment. As in,

“Look, we’ll probably need a different apartment…” (me)

“Yes, probably…” (Caro)

Of course, no one even got up from the bed, let alone googled it.

Then we talked about moving in together now. As in,

“You can move in with me…” (Caro)

“I have four boxes of stuff… And a bookcase…” (me)

Which meant what? Movers? Packing? Unpacking my mom’s parcel? Sorting out my lease that I had just renewed in October?

Again, too much.

Two days after the proposal, I’d ask if she called the lawyer about the prenup. She said she was going to. We’d never talk about it again.

So, what did we actually do? Well, Caro took a snap of that golden balloon and posted it to her Insta; then we pored over the likes and comments and congratulated each other again. This attitude was completely acceptable in the eyes of our peers, because the generation that couldn’t handle the task of registering to vote - which took all of 20 minutes plus a trip to the post office - knew that there was a huge difference between “getting married” and “to marry,” and that the former was a process that could take ages. And Caro and I, we were definitely _getting_ married, with the finish line so far ahead as to be almost mythic.

In sum, when the dust settled – and there was a lot of dust, admittedly – it settled pretty quickly, and I concluded that the old adage was probably true – the way out was through. It was time to play possum, let sleeping dogs lie. No sharp movements – and you just might stay a bachelor, Timmy.

Child’s play, literally and figuratively, right? Well, not to the so-called adults in our life.

First, of course, there were my parents. I supposed I had to inform them, so I called my mom.

“I proposed to Caro,” I told her.

“Proposed what?” she didn’t understand.

“Come on, really?” I rolled my eyes. “Marriage.”

She was literally speechless for a long time. “But you didn’t even want to live together a couple months ago…” she said finally.

“Well, we still don’t,” I admitted.

“Timothy, what’s going on?”

“I just told you,” I shrugged. “Caro and I are getting married.”

“Look,” she sighed, “if there’s a baby involved, then I must tell you that it’s not the best solution…”

“Oh, no, she’s not pregnant,” I reassured her. “No baby, trust me.”

“Then why?”

“Why not?”

She was silent again. “I’ll tell your father,” she promised or threatened, I wasn’t sure which.

We hung up, and I crossed “tell Mom” out of my to-do list.

Three hours later, when I was already dozing off, my dad called.

“Son,” he greeted me. I knew that “son,” that “son” was the same one I heard in the 6th grade, after I’d tried to burn down my school building.

“It’s really late, Dad,” I yawned.

“What’s it your mother’s telling me?”

“How would I know?” I scratched my forehead.

“Don’t get smart with me,” he warned. “Four hours and I’m there, so you better start explaining.”

“I’m getting married,” I blinked several times to fight off sleep.

“The girl is pregnant?”

What was it with them and babies? “Mom’s asked already. I told her no.”

“Well, now you can tell the truth,” he replied.

“It _is _the truth!” I sat up in bed.

“Then how?”

“What do you mean _how_?” I was confused.

“You have no real job, no accommodation, no prospects. What girl would agree to that?” he sounded genuinely confused, too.

“Thanks, Dad,” I nodded. “And I have a job.”

“Then why is your mother sending you money every month?”

He had me there. “I might win a Pulitzer one day,” I dodged.

“I have framed commendations on my wall, too,” he shot back. “You tell me, how do you propose to support a family?”

“I propose…” I glanced at the ceiling. “Maybe I’ll drive an Uber…”

“You have a car?” he asked, and I opened my mouth to say something and didn’t. “Son,” he sighed, “I have no idea how you bamboozled that sweet girl into this, but you must do the right thing here and take it back. I don’t know about your Pulitzer, but children _will_ come.”

“No, they won’t,” I replied firmly.

“Children happen,” he disagreed.

“No, they don’t. They are made.”

“Don’t get smart with me,” he said again. “What about your grandmother’s ring?”

Yes, we’re one of those families that have that special wedding ring handed down from generation to generation.

“We don’t need the ring,” I told him.

“You bought one?”

Of course not. I forgot about it completely, and when I asked Caro, she said we’d go and choose one together later. We were going to…

“No, I didn’t,” I admitted.

“And what did her father say to that?”

Oh, you’re better off not knowing what her father says, I thought. “I didn’t ask,” I shrugged.

“I need to talk to him.”

“No!” my sleepiness evaporated. “No! Don’t make it worse! There’s no need. You’re blowing it all out of proportion, you know?”

He was silent again. “It scares me,” he said finally, “scares me that one day your generation will run this country. It truly does.”

The line went dead.

It wasn’t better on Armand’s end either - when it was communicated to him that the proposal had happened, he invited us to celebrate. I don’t know what was going through his head, maybe he thought it was expected of him? Anyway, he only added to my problems, because he chose one of those 300-bucks-a-plate place, just the mention of which made Caro look at me and frown.

“You need clothes,” she said. “A suit, preferably.”

My credit card disagreed vehemently. It thought I rather needed a raise, and I thought so, too. There was a time in America – or so we’re told - when, on being married, a male received a promotion, whether he deserved it or not; but modern employers – print media, especially - started with “you don’t deserve it, no matter what” and went from there. So, after a week of heavy eyelash-batting at Stanley, I realized that that painful shoulder squeeze was all I was going to get in terms of congratulations.

So I called Mom. I had no choice. I swore it’d be the same suit I’d be married and buried in, if only she was so kind as to provide me four hundred bucks for it. She hated my sense of humor, but sent me the money nevertheless. I added another 200 and then realized that I’d misread the tag and it was what they wanted for the jacket only. As a result, I suspect the waiters there wore pricier pants than I did; but the hostess was too polite to check out my junk, so I skated.

Caro had to go to Jersey that day and was stuck on the bridge on her way back, so it was Armand and Estelle when I arrived. I hadn’t seen Estelle since the election night and the morning after and didn’t know what to expect.

Well, Barbados sun showed, visible enthusiasm was absent, but at least she didn’t throw her martini in my face. We all said hello, and Armand hid behind the menu. Caro assured me that, being the inviting party, her dad would pay for the dinner, which everyone knew was more out of necessity than politeness; so I had promised myself not to go overboard with my appetite, but one look at Estelle’s tan sent all my better angels running for cover.

Let it be caviar and Cristal tonight, I narrowed my eyes. If he’d had the balls to stay and talk to me, we wouldn’t have ended up in this mess, I thought spitefully. So, pay up.

And, fuck him, he looked good again. It was a curse, honestly. I’d sworn to myself that I’d do everything in my power to get him out of my head during my engagement and possible marriage - Caro deserved nothing less; but one glance at those hands undid all my efforts. I could still feel those arms around me, and I still wanted them to be there.

I didn’t know if we’d ever get to the altar with Caro, but he’d better not wait for me there, because I wouldn’t know whom I was saying yes to.

“You were going to make a call,” Estelle looked at him.

He frowned. “I don’t remem…”

“Jonathan,” she interrupted. “About the new title.”

“It can wait,” he shrugged.

She looked at me, I knew what she wanted.

“It’s fine,” I said. “We’re waiting for Caro anyway, and I’m sure Estelle will make a lovely company in your absence.”

“It’s nothing urgent, I can call him tomorrow,” he protested.

We both stared at him pointedly. “You could watch us from the bar,” I sighed, “if you’re so worried.”

“Look, this is…”

“Just go,” I cut him off. “Take the forks with you, if you want.”

He made a face, Estelle shook her head. The waiter came and I asked for currant juice, after which there was a pause and I found three pairs of eyes on me.

“What kind, sir?” the guy blinked first.

“Black,” I told him. “Shaken, not stirred.”

“Certainly,” he gave a curt nod and hurried to get it.

“You’re still here?” I looked at Armand.

After he finally left us alone, we waited for my juice, then lined up our respective artilleries and watched who’d fire first.

“I think I understand what he sees in you,” she began.

“Do you?”

“This rustic authenticity can be charming, I guess…”

“Oh please,” I rolled my eyes. “You can do better than this.”

“This relationship has no future, we both know it.”

“You mean you and him?” I raised a brow.

She actually smiled. “Hurts?”

“Like hell,” I confessed. “Happy?”

We watched each other in silence. She got pensive and the sharpness drained from her face. “It’s better for everyone, like this,” she sounded tired. “Though, I must admit I’d underestimated you - you’re smarter than I thought.” There was a pause. “Smarter and much more ambitious.”

“If you mean my engagement to Caro,” I shook my head, “don’t. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” she cocked her head. “You want to tell me you haven’t thought about it? About everything that will come with being married to Chris Hammer’s granddaughter?”

“Nothing that I couldn’t get by myself if I wanted to.”

“Right,” she snorted. “And Anderson’s mother being a Vanderbilt had nothing to do with his career…”

“I don’t want to be Anderson Cooper.”

She gave me a long look. “I hope I’m mistaken here…” she frowned. “You can’t really believe that there is even a _slightest_ chance of you two,” she nodded towards the bar, “ever having anything close to a normal relationship…”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘normal,’” I replied.

She stared. “My god, you do… You really do.”

She seemed genuinely flabbergasted, and I felt uncomfortable for the first time. Her verbal attacks didn’t matter, but the astonishment on her face hurt.

“Look, Tim, you may not believe me, but I’m telling it for your sake, too,” she paused, thinking. “The biggest open secret on top floors in this city right now is that _NYT_ and NBC are digging into Harvey Weinstein. I don’t know when it’ll blow up… but when it does… 2017 is going to be a very different year.”

I hadn’t heard anything about it and didn’t understand where she was going with it. “What do we have to do with Weinstein?” I frowned. “He’s Hollywood.”

“You don’t…” she closed her eyes for a moment. “All I’m saying is that you don’t want a Woody Allen-type situation on your hands going forward. Trust me.”

“Woody Allen?” I understood even less. “For fuck’s sake, the guy married his daughter, or some such. There’s no comparison, Estelle.”

“She was his then-wife’s daughter, actually,” she shook her head. “But that’s it, that’s the point – no one cares. People just remember that it smells, and they’re right.”

“You’re talking about… Come on, these are celebrities; we’re private people.”

“Steve Jobs and his little invention made this notion obsolete,” she scoffed. “Christ, can’t you see what being involved with your own father-in-law will do to your reputation? Every conversation, every mention of your name… Someone’s boy toy, is that what you want?”

“I can’t stop people from talking,” I sighed. “I’ll deal with it when it happens.”

“Oh, they won’t just talk,” she looked at me pityingly. “Your next job interview, you know how it’ll start? ‘On your knees, please.’ Are you ready?”

My breathing stayed even, but my cheeks burned. She didn’t say anything I hadn’t thought about myself. New York was a big city with a small-town soul, it thrived on rumors and it loved labels.

If I was with him, people I never met would have opinions about me, would think they knew what’s going on in my bedroom, would decide how to treat me, before I even said hello. And to a lot of them, my whole story, our story, would become just a dirty joke, passed around during cocktails. Was I ready?

“Won’t be any better for him, either,” she continued.

“What about him?”

“You think he’ll look good?” she asked. “He won’t. A man his age dating someone like you? Mr. Hammer and his bunny? In this day and age, it’s no longer provocative, Tim, it’s just sad.

“You think it’ll boost his image? Come on! Everything you are is what he can no longer be, and being with you will only highlight it. He _already_ looks sixty next to your boyish face, and it’ll get worse with every passing day. In the end, it’ll be grotesque. Assuming, you’re still there to see the end, of course, which I seriously doubt, because there are only so many Viagra jokes you both can take, before it becomes nauseating.”

Alright, I nodded, alright. Below the belt. Not bad for a local skirmish. What would Sun Tzu recommend? Float like a butterfly or sting like a bee?

I leaned across the table. “Nothing you can tell me will change my mind. You hear me? _Nothing._” I looked her in the eye to make sure she understood and continued, “I promise you don’t need to be on guard for now. There won’t be any nasty surprises like the one that night. I regret hurting you, it wasn’t my intention, and I repeat, it won’t happen again – I’ll do everything in my power to minimize the pain for everyone, _especially_ Caro. I won’t disrespect my fiancée by cheating on her.

“But I’m telling you upfront, Estelle – one day I’ll take him away from you, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. I don’t know when and I don’t know how, but I know that it’ll happen, and I don’t see any point in being coy about it. So enjoy it while it lasts and I’m happy for you, but don’t mistake Pearl Harbor for Battle of Berlin – the war isn’t over yet.

“And regarding Viagra – again, I think you’re in pain or you’d never say something like that. Because he doesn’t deserve it, and you know it.”

She turned away and her eyes found him sitting at the bar, talking with some bearded guy.

“You’ll hurt him,” she said quietly.

“He’ll hurt me, too,” I replied, following her gaze. “That’s life.”

She leaned back in her chair and was looking at me, then raised her martini and her expression briefly resembled that of a cat ready to pounce. “To the beauty of our weapons,” she whispered.

I laughed, “Indeed,” and got my juice. Right then he turned and looked at our table, frowning when he noticed our toast.

Minutes later Caro arrived, and Armand returned and joined us. Soon it became clear that he didn’t understand modern attitude towards marriage any better than my parents.

“Have you decided on the date?” he looked between us.

“Weee…” I began, not knowing where I’d end.

“…are keeping our options open,” Caro took my hand.

“Yes, we are,” I nodded happily.

We got quite good at this small yes-dear routine: one would start, the other would finish, both in complete agreement that we had no idea what we wanted.

“What about your apartment?” he asked his daughter.

“What about it?” she blinked.

“It seems rather small for two…”

“It is,” she said and looked at me.

“Yes, it is,” I nodded.

“Maybe we should start looking for something then?” he tried again.

“Maybe,” Caro shrugged, opening the menu. “Lobster?” she glanced at me.

I looked too. “What’s pommes dauphine? Apples?”

“Potatoes,” she chuckled. “Potato puffs.”

“I’m in,” I nodded. “It’s ok, right?” I looked at him. There were no prices in our menus, but the lobster thing couldn’t be cheap.

“Oh, sure, sure,” he nodded, still looking quizzical.

I caught Estelle’s eyes. She seemed pissed.

Was it my rusticity again? I had no idea what he saw in me - I should’ve asked him while I had time - but if it was that, then I had it in spades.

“This?” Caro pointed at another item.

“Champagne?”

“Champagne and butter, plus caviar. It’s a must.”

“Then we must,” I grinned.

And so, instead of our future nuptials, we’d talk mostly about Caro’s work and not-my-president protests still going on in the city - New York seemed even more appalled by Donald’s win than the rest of the country.

There were jokes about Chris Christie, too. The guy, who sold his conscience and still somewhat respectable name for a job in the White House, had been dismissed just days earlier, and Mike Pence now led the transition team.

I didn’t pity Christie, but I thought here was a lesson for anyone who wanted to work for Trump – the guy who demanded unquestioning loyalty felt none of it himself. Two years later, on his way to jail, Trump’s personal fixer, Michael Cohen, who lied for him right until the moment FBI kicked down his door, would testify before congressional committee and say this: “I can only warn people. The more people that follow Mr. Trump - as I did blindly - are going to follow the same consequences that I'm suffering.”

If Trump had any mystique at all, it was that – somehow he made people believe that he cared about them, and they fought for him, mortgaging everything up to their very souls.

It didn’t help, though. Roger Ailes would die abandoned and forgotten by the man he helped to elect. Steve Bannon would be ousted after less than a year. So would Michael Flynn, Reince Priebus, Kirstjen Nielsen, Sean Spicer, Anthony Scaramucci, Rex Tillerson etc. etc.

It was only November, and Trump Revolution had already begun devouring its own children, starting with Chris Christie, who wouldn’t even make it to inauguration.

My mental chastity belt was holding, but it wasn’t easy. I kept sneaking glances at Armand and wanted to do to him what I was doing to the lobster on my plate – eat him piece by delicious piece, from head to tail. Tail especially.

I looked up and met his eyes across the table. God, when this war is over, I’ll lock the bedroom and throw away the key. Even if you’re seventy by then.

He turned away.

Sigh.

Caro could survive losing me, I was pretty sure of that by now. We were great in the beginning, very good in the middle and at this point just very nice together. Yes, we were nice. In fact, I could easily imagine being married to her, even spending our lives together. She was a fantastic girl, it wouldn’t be a hardship, it just wouldn’t be right, because here – stretch your arm and you could touch it – here sat someone who was no longer my “maybe,” but my absolute “definitely,” and how many of those do you meet in your lifetime?

I told Estelle the truth, though - there won’t be any shenanigans. I’ll do right by Caro, I promised to myself. I had already deleted our messages with Armand and cleaned browser history on every device I owned. There won’t be any unfortunate discoveries, no walking in on me masturbating to her father’s pics or anything like this.

No, we’ll do it right. No matter what everyone was saying, we’ll do it right. Because there is always a way to do it right - the four of us couldn’t be the first family on earth who ended up in a sticky situation, even as sticky as this one.

The best case scenario – and the one I was fervently praying for – was for Caro to fall for someone else. It was possible, too. New York was a big city – any day, something that happened to me, could happen to her: she’d go to lunch with someone, look up and there he or she would be, her own “maybe.”

And about Armand being gay? Hell, Caro wasn’t five. I agree, it would’ve been pretty traumatic had it been revealed during her childhood, but now? She was made of a sterner stuff, I couldn’t imagine her having an apoplexy over this.

And if she was in love with someone else, then…

…then the fact that it was _me_ her father was shtupping would go down much easier.

So, who? Fuck, who?

Who was her type?

She liked John Krasinski, I knew that, and I could sympathize - I liked him too. Well, not in that way. Or? No, not in that way. I wasn’t a Pam to his Jim, I was sure.

Though, I was a Pam, I glanced across the table again, and I’d walk on coals for you, too, my friend. Sit tight, prepare ointment for my burnt heels…

Anyway, John. He lived in New York, was a good guy… aaand was married.

Out.

Who else?

God help us, she liked Harry Styles. That I couldn’t explain, I didn’t see anything appealing there - too young, too short, too British; but if he could get us all out of our collective misery, I’d take him too. Would even send him a thank-you card: “Dear Harry, from the bottom of my heart…”

Jesus, cuckolded by a Brit! Is there anything more humiliating? All they had in terms of manhood was Nelson, Churchill and Hugh Grant: first – no eye, second – no neck, third – no morals. Not exactly the nation you expect to…

“Tim, wake up!” I heard and blinked.

“What?”

“What about Thanksgiving?” Caro gave me an exasperated look.

“What about it?”

“How long have you been out?” she sighed.

“Since Chris Christie,” I confessed. “Sorry.” 

“Something on your mind?” Estelle smirked.

I slowly licked my lips. “Making plans, you know? I have _a lot_.”

She rolled her eyes. I glanced at Armand, he pretended to be entranced by the contents of his plate.

“Well, I was saying that we could go to Maine,” Caro told me. “You’d meet my grandpa, and… I was planning to invite Mom, too,” she looked at her father. “Two birds, one stone,” she shrugged.

He frowned. “I thought she was working on her exhibition…”

“Yeah, but… It’s just a couple of days. Don’t you think?..” she didn’t finish. “Of course, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Estelle,” she added apologetically.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Estelle shook her head. “I’ll be with my parents in Virginia.”

Father and daughter exchanged a look. I wasn’t sure what transpired, but finally Armand nodded. “I’ll talk to her. I’m sure… I’m sure, if she can, she’ll be there.”

“Tim?” Caro turned to me. “I realize it’s… Look, we could spend Christmas in Michigan,” she said brightly. “And I could talk to your mom, explain to her… I know you have the tickets already, but…”

Mom would be disappointed, I knew that, but it did sound reasonable. Caro’s grandpa was, like, 300 years old - if I wanted to meet the guy, I couldn’t waste time.

“Let’s go to Maine,” I nodded. “It’s fine. They’ll understand,” I meant my folks.

They did. As much as they understood anything about my life at the time, they understood that spending the holidays with my fiancée’s family was important. I promised Mom Christmas in return, and Caro assured her that we were coming no matter what. After talking to my girlfriend, Dad was even more amazed that someone like that would want to marry someone like me. Luckily, he didn’t say anything, but I heard incredulity in his voice.

I admit I wasn’t worried about that grandpa. The guy survived WWII – I doubted the news of his granddaughter getting engaged would cause a revolution in his world. I expected to receive another painful squeeze on the shoulder and “Good for you,” or something like that. And listening to Caro talking about him, I became more and more convinced that that would be the case, indeed. So, no, I wasn’t worried about Chris Hammer, but Liza P. gave me pause.

She was coming. Armand called and confirmed it. What to do with her, I had no idea. We’d never talked and I only saw a couple of her photos, both taken long ago. On one she was sitting on a swing, hugging 7-8-year-old Caro who was standing between her knees. They were both smiling - Liza’s chin on her daughter’s shoulder, her luxurious chestnut hair covering them both like a mantle.

She was a beautiful woman, I couldn’t deny it, and she looked nothing like Estelle. Where Estelle seemed sharp and haughty, Liza seemed soft and… impish. It was a strange contradiction, she looked homey, but there was a playful spark in her eyes that kept you on your toes. And Caro worshipped her, as I think I mentioned already, so her opinion of me mattered. It mattered much more than Armand’s, I didn’t doubt it.

In short, I didn’t know what to expect, so I expected the worst, even though it was difficult to say what this worst could be. Paradoxically, I was right and wrong at the same time, but we’ll come to that.

I had to be in the office on Thursday and couldn’t leave until two, so Caro and I flew separately from Armand. She waited for me, and we rushed to the airport, got delayed for an hour at Newark, missed our bus in Bangor and had to pay double for the taxi to Lincolnville, while simultaneously fighting off Armand, who called us every ten minutes and, judging by Caro’s annoyed face, sounded like the world would end, if we couldn’t get there before the turkey was out of the oven.

“No, Mom isn’t worried – _you_ are,” she groaned. “Stop. We’re… Stop. Ok?”

“He’s nuts,” she complained, after hanging up. “I’m pretty sure Mom gave him hell, so now I have to pay.”

Flustered Armand was a delicious mental picture, and I spent the hour of our drive fantasizing how I could make him even more flustered. Maine was cold in November, that taxi felt stifling…

Naturally, when I heard about the waterfront house, I imagined something akin to the Hamptons, given that the Hammers didn’t look like they struggled financially, so I was surprised to see a relatively modest two-story Dutch Colonial - brown gambrel roof and a small white porch with a lantern – stone’s throw away from the rocky shoreline.

The door was opened by a short slim woman with a ponytail. Jessica Kodama, the legendary girlfriend I’d heard about, part-Japanese, every inch a delightful lady. Turned out, she was responsible for the turkey we risked missing.

“Still in the oven,” were her first words. “They’re HERE!” she shouted and started helping Caro with her scarf, miles and miles of it.

After all this fuss over our lateness, you’d think everyone would be there to greet us. No one came, actually. I saw some dude poking out of the door leading to the living room, and that was it.

“Your parents are talking,” Jessica informed Caro.

“Fighting you mean,” she sighed.

“No, they’ve done it already. Now they are talking.”

“Hallelujah…” Caro replied tiredly and grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

The house… Well, it looked bigger on the inside, than on the outside. Spacious, clean, all redwood and china and bird pictures in the hallways. Nothing to blow your mind, like baby grands or marble staircases, but it was warm and felt lived in, which I liked.

Anyone’s interested in the living room? Well, it had a fireplace and a whole wall of photos of Chris Hammer with all sorts of important people, including – who could have thought? – one with Dustin Hoffman. I’ll notice it later, I didn’t at first. First I noticed Armand’s ass. It was a curse, truly. Anywhere I’d go, if he was present, this would be the thing my eyes would land on, as if by magic.

But in this case no supernatural interference was needed - he was simply standing with his back to us when we came in. So I looked at his derriere, Caro said hi, he turned and I stared at his crotch, and asked heavens for serenity to accept the things I couldn’t change, namely that my father-in-law was an eye candy.

He looked good. In other news, water is wet. He always does, so let’s not waste time on what he was wearing, because who gives a fuck? He was wearing _something_, including pants, and I immediately wanted to peel them off him with my teeth, slowly. In other news…

Anyway, all this talk of asses, crotches and prayers is here only to show that I missed Liza P. She was there, too, and I didn’t notice her at first, because Armand is bigger than Rhode Island and she was behind him. They were talking, as Jessica warned us.

Yes, I’d seen her pictures. No, she looked nothing like she did ten years earlier. For starters, the hair was gone. Well, not completely, but what was left paled in comparison to that glorious mane she had as Mrs. Hammer. In its place was a disheveled pixie haircut, razor-sharp bang diametrically across her forehead and electric blue streaks here and there.

Well, hello, Mama, I thought, aren’t you a natural ballbuster? And just then I noticed her boots, thigh-high, black, leather. She was sitting cross-legged on the armrest of a sofa, so they were quite prominent.

She studied me. There is no other way to put it. I glanced at Armand, he looked like he had a slight headache. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I suspected it was a common expression on his face when she was around.

“So, this is it,” she cocked her head.

Caro nodded, then nodded again, then side-eyed me, looking apologetic, I thought, and added, “Yes.”

“You don’t look French,” Liza opined.

“I am, though,” I decided on the spot. “I was. Long ago.”

“How long?”

“16th century…”

“And what happened?”

“Ah, we slept around,” I shrugged.

Maybe that wasn’t the thing to tell your future mother-in-law on first introduction, but she asked, and I think truth is important. In right amounts. 

“Well, _that_ I can see,” she smirked.

My respect for Armand grew in those moments – you had to have some balls to ask this chick out. And the kind of bullshit he must have spouted to get her to marry him was probably mind-boggling. On the other hand, he had that ass in his twenties too, so it might not have been his personality that convinced her. I mean, he has a great personality, but I have a great personality, too, and… if you think this alone will get you laid, think again.

We studied each other a bit more, Liza and I. I don’t think she thought much of men in general, she didn’t give that vibe, and I can’t say she looked impressed with me in particular, but it seemed she concluded that Caro could have done worse, and as soon as she did, everyone relaxed.

Except for Armand. Which I didn’t understand, until his dad arrived.

The easiest way to describe it would be to say that no one would suspect them of being father and son. You simply couldn’t accuse Chris Hammer – shortish, frail, pale, brown-eyed – of producing something like Armand in all his frosty glory. But somehow Chris did, and he wanted everyone to know it; so he couldn’t care less that his progeny was fifty now and treated him with as much delicacy as any drill sergeant would a greenhorn.

He was pretty civil with me, though.

“Good for you,” he nodded, when Caro told him that my name was Tim.

Then he kissed his granddaughter on both cheeks and let me know with one sharp look that nothing of the sort would even happen between us. He was a nice fellow, really. I have nothing bad to say about him.

It took some getting used to, sure, seeing them with Jessica, and maybe a year earlier I would’ve had a lot of smart-ass opinions and Harold-and-Maude jokes about it, but by the time I met them I’d already fallen in love with an old guy myself, so my judgmentalism was at its lowest. I guess, what people usually ask – openly or behind closed doors – when they see such a couple, is “You think, they actually _do it_?” And I didn’t give a damn. They seemed fine together, unusual but fine. Plus, they weren’t dying to hear my opinion anyway.

Who else? Well, there was also Richard, the dude I glimpsed when we first arrived. He was Liza’s boyfriend, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, “temporarily” – mind you, temporarily – stuck in Colorado, because his latest start-up went belly up, obliterating a significant part of his fortune. As far as I understood, he’d invented some juicer that worked under water and in outer space, but malfunctioned on dry land, where most of the potential customers dwelled, so he was scouting for new ideas. I couldn’t help him – I had no idea how to make a million bucks; if I did, I wouldn’t be planning to write a book about it and simply got rich myself.

He shrugged, I shrugged, he congratulated me on my engagement, and we were both pretty sure we’d never have to talk to each other again for as long as we lived. 

Around then, we started slowly migrating to the dining room, and Armand was sent to fetch the turkey. No one else would’ve been able to lift this beast, I’m sure - I have no idea how Jessica handled it. They started cutting it - well, Armand started and his father helped by telling him how inept he was. I felt sorry for my man – I knew how he felt, my own dad used to tell me all the time what he thought about my marksmanship, too. As in, “Son, guys like you end up shooting off their own nuts, and I’m not surprised.”

Christopher Hammer was sitting at the head of the table, with Liza on his right - as a guest of honor, I suppose - and Armand on his left, then Caro and I on her father’s side in that order, and Richard on Liza’s, with Jessica as the hostess.

I thought Chris would leave his son alone after the bird was dismembered, but he obviously missed him and couldn’t communicate it in any other way than through insults; so the verbal whipping continued.

Armand suggested that, with all due respect, but it was time for his dad to put his seafaring ambitions to rest.

“You want to die in your chair, be my guest!” the old man was outraged. “And you will! Look at you, you will! You seem my age already, another ten years… Ah…” he sighed. “Breaks my heart - who’ll look after you when you’re done?”

Armand made some polite noise, hoping, I suppose, that the conversation could move on from his imminent senility.

“You two,” Chris continued, turning to Liza, “you should get back together. Fucked around enough.”

“Dad, please,” Armand sighed.

“What?” his father shrugged. “Just saying what everyone’s thinking.”

I looked around the table – it didn’t seem anyone was thinking that. Even Caro, I thought, was over it by now.

“Your mother would be so happy,” his father added.

“She hated my guts, Papa,” Liza chuckled.

“Well,” he sniffed, “she had a temper on her, true. But that’s understandable. Ahh, it was very Freudian between them,” he confided loudly to Liza. “Very.”

“Dad…” Armand coughed. “Please.”

“Yes,” Chris nodded. “_Very_ oedipal. She breast-fed him until he was three, I think…”

“Is this _really_ necessary?” Armand interrupted.

“What?” his dad was all innocence.

Everything was quiet for a moment. Suddenly. “Lactation can be a profoundly erotic experience for a woman.”

No, it wasn’t me. I’m quite capable of something like that, but it wasn’t me, I swear.

If Armand had any supernatural powers, aside from his hotness, he’d blast that poor schmuck off the face of the earth.

“Who _are_ you?” Chris demanded.

“Richard… Szyszkowski.”

“Polack?” Papa Hammer seemed taken aback for a second. “My condolences,” he said gruffly.

Richard didn’t know what to say to that, and Chris didn’t wait for him to make up his mind and launched into a story of what he saw in Warsaw in 45; because there’s nothing like Holocaust to brighten up a family dinner, I suppose.

In this merry way we slowly got to the giving thanks part of the night. I didn’t know we were going to do it, so I didn’t prepare anything, and when Jessica suggested that it was time, I started frantically searching for something innocuous and believable enough to say that wouldn’t draw too much attention to me.

We began with Chris, of course, and he didn’t go for anything witty or original and simply said he was grateful he was still alive. Everyone nodded.

Liza was thankful that there were still foundations in this country that subsidized art and humanities, and that one of them sent a grant her way.

Richard was glad he invested in crypto in May, because bitcoin was on a steep rise at the time.

Jessica appreciated that her family and friends were all doing well. Again, everyone agreed solemnly. You can’t beat that.

I was going to say something along those lines too, but she stole my thunder, so to speak, and I ended up thanking heavens for the First Amendment and that it takes inordinate amount of effort to change even a word in our Constitution. It was lame, I guess, and no one swooned as a result, but I couldn’t in all honesty admit that I was grateful for my future father-in-law, it could be misinterpreted.

I was afraid Caro would say that meeting me was the best part of her year, but she didn’t because it wasn’t, apparently. Instead, she mentioned the influx of donations to non-profits like the one she was working in, which meant that compassion wasn’t dead in America, even with Trump as president-elect. Out of all of us, Richard was moved the most by it, for some reason.

Armand sighed and said he was thankful that people still read books, because he’s dull as hell and couldn’t come up with anything more interesting. 

It was after nine and Chris declared that the evening was over, so Armand accompanied him to the bedroom, and Caro, Richard, Liza and I ended up watching _Planes, Trains and Automobiles_. I laughed at the pillows joke, and everyone else thought it was dated, which didn’t stop Richard from tearing up during the finale. I don’t know what his deal was, maybe he was just one of those people who find family gatherings deeply endearing, because they aren’t subjected to them on a regular basis.

Caro and I were tired after our trip, so we called it a night around midnight and Jessica showed us to the room on the second floor that had been prepared for us. I noticed a lonely suitcase in another bedroom and thought it must have been Armand’s. He’d be sleeping down the hall from us. So close, so fucking close… Unattainable.

In a glimpse, I imagined getting up in the middle of the night and sneaking into his room. I’d undress quickly and slip into his bed, trembling from cold Atlantic breeze and desire. Let me be your anything, I’d beg, anything… He wouldn’t be able to resist, I was sure of it - you can only go hungry for so long, before you start stealing. We’d make love all night and go to hell in the morning. 

It was a marvelous, monstrous plan. I never did it. I slept like a baby instead, Caro in my arms and the taste of Jessica’s almond nougat on my tongue, and dreamed about the ocean and sunken ships, silent water and mysteries.

Did he want me to come?

Did he fear I would?

Was he thinking about his father’s words, about getting old and being left behind? Time, precious time, running out, turning his beautiful body into a crypt, editing the manuscript of his life, finding every “maybe” and replacing it with “might have been”?

Blink – and you’re sixty. And life, where did it go? When?

Hourglass of your moments – sand, bursting jasmine – dried.

Let me be your anything! Anything, but your yesterday. Anything, but your could, and would, and should.

Let me…

Don’t die! Let me save you from time, let me outlaw it, outlove it. Have you ever thought that I might never happen to you again? Have you?

Scared? Don’t be, be thankful that I did. Time to be thankful.

Morning was brittle, biting and cold. In the white kitchen, its windows splashed with ocean’s lead, Jessica made us coffee with cinnamon, and we were talking about maybe returning here next year, pauses in our conversation, uncomfortable questions that people usually avoid – who knows what’ll happen next year? who knows what kind of year it’ll be? We’re sitting around this table, who knows if we’ll ever gather around it again?

Be thankful for the now, nothing else exists.

Armand had woken up long before us and gone down to the shed to check the engine on his father’s boat. Liza came in, her metal high heels clicking menacingly on the redwood floors. She sat beside her daughter and, I think, stunned Caro when she suddenly put her arms around her and kissed her temple.

“Lucky boy, aren’t you?” she looked at me.

Caro was blushing. “Yes,” I said. “Very.”

“Very,” Liza nodded and asked Jessica if there was any nougat left, because Richard had a sweet tooth and would love it with his coffee.

On her way out she ran into Armand, coming back from his boat inspection.

“Missed some,” she smiled and tapped the place on her jaw. He frowned and touched the mirroring spot on his face, where some yesterday’s shade was still present.

“Thanks,” he chuckled.

In that brief moment I suddenly realized that these two people were married for fifteen years, shared a life, had a family together. I knew it in my head, of course, but it was different seeing it. And, unbidden, a similar image came into my head – me and Caro years down the road, just like this, so naturally domestic and familiar to each other.

My heart thudded in alarm – it could happen, it could happen so easily, maybe it was already happening, while we were joking about four boxes of stuff that were supposedly too much work to move from place to place.

There must be a way out. The right way. The decent way.

Time, precious time… My own hourglass…

“I wanted to talk to you two,” Armand said, interrupting my thoughts, then glanced at me and seemed uncomfortable.

“Oh, of course,” I got up and picked up my cup. “I’ll be in our room,” I told Caro and left the three of them in the kitchen.

Half an hour later she came and told me that they had to go see some Mrs. Hatcher.

“She is a nurse,” Caro explained. “A live-in nurse… Grandpa is… Jessica thought it was best,” she swallowed. “We want to meet her…”

“Want me to go with you?” I took her hand.

“No,” she shook her head. “No, it’s… Maybe we won’t need her after all,” she smiled weakly.

“He looked sprightly to me,” I offered.

“He is,” she nodded. “Most of the time. Anyway, we wanted to see this woman. Just in case…”

They left not long after that. I watched them getting into Jessica’s blue Ford from the window and didn’t really know what to do with myself. I had Amor Towles’s _A Gentleman in Moscow_ with me, but I didn’t feel like reading at the moment, and this trip was a perfect excuse to get away from Twitter for at least a day, so I looked outside and decided to go down to the shore for a stroll along the beach.

I’d already reached the low fence that surrounded the house when I heard someone calling my name, turned around and saw Liza returning from the back yard.

“How about a walk?” she cocked her head. I was going to tell her that I was just… “Follow me,” she nodded.

I did. We passed the house and entered the small woods that began as soon as you left the yard. We didn’t talk, simply walked side by side until we reached a clearing with a big stump at the center of it. She looked around, then retrieved a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and sat on that stump facing me.

The audience had begun. I was under no illusion by then that it was anything else, so I watched her lighting up a short brown cigarillo and waited.

“So…” she hugged herself and looked at me. “I guess there is no polite way to ask it,” she took a shallow drag and blinked from the smoke. “Tim, are you gay?” 

I don’t know what a deer in the headlights really looks like, but I now know how it feels.

“I… I… Why…” I started. “Why would you say that?”

“Well,” she chuckled, “if you didn’t drool all over my ex last night, I wouldn’t.”

“I didn’t…”

She didn’t bother to reply.

“I care about Caro,” I said the first thing that came to mind. “I really do.”

She nodded. “In Boulder, we have a cat, comes to our porch from time to time. I care about it, too.”

“No, it’s not like that!”

“What’s it like?”

“Liz… Elizab…”

“Ms. Chambers,” she raised a brow.

“Ms. Chambers,” I repeated and stared at her in silence.

“Come on,” she sighed. “Whatever it is, I just want to hear it. Is it money? Because you won’t get much, I guarantee you. In fac…”

“No!” I stopped her. “No! It was never about… I was in love with your daughter, truly… In August, just this August I would’ve been… over the moon, if… It’s just… It got out of hand, I thought I could figure out something, and then… It just happened so fast…” I looked at her desperately. “It’s…”

“Are you sleeping with him?” she interrupted calmly.

“No! No, of course not. He’d never do something like that!”

“Well, I surely hope so,” she replied drily. “He wants to, though. It’s obvious.”

“I realize what you must be thinking,” I looked at the frozen ground.

“How could he let you do this?”

“He didn’t, really,” I shrugged. “He didn’t want it, but… there was no time, and…” I looked at her. “Have you seen _Dark Knight_?”

“Excuse me?” she frowned.

“Well, it’s a… Christopher Nolan, Batman trilogy,” I sighed. Why does it always sound so good in your head before you actually start saying it? “Well, there is a scene there, last scene, you know? And they don’t know what to do, because Joker won, he won in fact, and now… So they decide, Bruce Wayne says something like, ‘Sometimes truth isn’t enough. Sometimes people deserve more.’ And they think… Ah, it doesn’t matter what they think, because that’s not the end of the trilogy and later Bane comes, and…

“I don’t want to lie,” I looked at her. “I’m sick of it already, but that day, when it happened, when I proposed to her… There was no time. Maybe I would’ve done it differently now, but that day… She couldn’t find out like that, not like that. She would’ve hated him, maybe for the rest of her life, and he is her father…”

She looked away and shook her head, probably amazed at my stupidity.

“Come, sit,” she patted the stump. “I could never imagine… What was it? How many men does it take to fuck up a light bulb?” she sighed. “Well, now we have a definitive answer – two is enough. Sit.”

I got down beside her, and we looked at each other silently. She offered me her cigarillo and rolled her eyes when I tried it and started coughing.

“So, what were you planning to do, you and… Commissioner Gordon, I suppose?”

“I’m sorry for that analogy,” I glanced at her guiltily.

“Yeah…”

“The truth is I think we’ll never get there, me and Caro. To the altar, I mean. We aren’t rushing this whole thing, and after some time, I believe she’ll see it, too, and it will just… dissolve,” I spread my fingers. “Just… go away. Like… Like bees, you know? They say, when bees attack, you should stand still, and they… well, they’ll leave. But if you flail your arms and try to swat them and…” I didn’t know where I was going with it and judging by her face she didn’t either. “Anyway, I think I’m trying to stand still right now. Only I don’t know how long this thing will take, and it scares me. Because…” I took a deep breath. “I’m just so afraid he’ll die.”

Liza’s hand froze on the way to her mouth. “Who?” she stared at me.

“Your husband, ex… husband.”

“Armie?” she blinked. “He looked healthy as a horse to me last night.”

“Things happen,” I said seriously.

“Aha,” she nodded, “and you want to get in his pants, while he’s still breathing. Right?”

“Wouldn’t you?” I glanced at her sideways.

“No,” she scoffed. “I’ve had enough of that dick.”

It was my turn to stare. She went on puffing, as if it was a type of conversation she had every day in her life. 

“First of all,” she said after a time, “I’ll never let you marry my daughter. Forget it. All this – daughters becoming their mothers – won’t happen here. I’ll blow up every courthouse in New York, before you can get that license. Every single one.

“Second, I’ll rip him a new one. He’ll miss our divorcing days, when I’m through with him. My lawyer is a master of vivisection, just unleash him, and oh, I will. He’ll be in line to a soup kitchen when we’re done.

“Third,” she turned to me, “if my daughter sheds a single tear because of you…”

She didn’t finish, but I got the drift. “She won’t. I’ll see to it, she won’t,” I promised. “But what about…” I didn’t know how to say it.

She smirked. “When it’s done and Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to screw my ex.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” I had tears in my eyes, I swear.

She gave me her phone. “Leave me your number.”

I typed quickly. “What will you do?”

“Paint,” she finished her cigarillo and got up, “and think. Let’s go. My ass is freezing.”

We walked back as silently as before. Cold cloudless sky breathed winter in our faces, and I noticed that blue streaks in her hair looked turquoise in this light.

When we rounded the house, we saw Armand and Caro getting out of the car. He frowned seeing us, but didn’t say anything.

Caro looked at me and shrugged helplessly, and her eyes, beautiful and sad, reminded me of the one summer we had together and the love, that river you can’t enter twice.

Time, precious time… My hourglass…

I came up and hugged her to me. “It’s alright,” I whispered. “Everything’ll be alright, I promise you. Everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!


	11. Chapter 11

December and decimate – two members of one word family. Have you thought about it? No? Well, I haven’t either. December had always been Christmas and birthday and gifts to me, but not that year.

It wasn’t a week since we came back from Maine, and I already was going insane.

Nolan again – there is no true despair without hope.

True. There is not.

I wouldn’t live chained to my phone, jumping every time it buzzed, my heart doing somersaults with every unfamiliar number, if I wasn’t expecting Liza to call and say, “It’s over. You’re free.” I imagined leaving my office and running up 7th Avenue to his office, I’d breeze past the security and rush to his office - big windows and broad pine desk that I’d never seen – interrupt some meeting, jump over that desk and pin him to the wall in his chair, clutching him so hard to me, his bones would protest, smothering him. I wouldn’t let him go for hours. Because for dear life, because there’s no other way.

But no one called. Well, other people did, and made me angry that it wasn’t her offering some magic solution. I’d prepared to go on and on and on in this limbo, and then she appeared and offered this hope and now it was torturing me.

Longing is a peculiar word, so truly descriptive. It makes everything longer – days, seconds, conversations with people who aren’t the person you want, nights, subway rides.

One night I caught some cheesy 90s movie, Jack Nicholson was turning into a wolf. I watched it without paying attention, sneering at the dated CGI, then Jack said to Michelle Pfeiffer, “If civilization fails, if the world ends, I’ll still understand what God meant if I’m with you.”

It went through me like a train, those words. I stumbled to the window, opened it and howled at the moon, laughing hysterically when out of breath.

_I guess that’s why they call it window pane… _

No one alerted the police, no one even banged on the radiator. How many people are howling from their windows in the part of Bronx I lived in? You can’t help them all, so why try?

Despair can’t do that to you, only hope.

She didn’t call.

Alone, I sometimes succumbed to the sweet relief of jerking off, squeezing my cock painfully, until tears ran down my cheeks. Ashamed, shameless, wishing to go back to that park, feel his hands, his warmth, hear it again and again and again, “How exquisite you are… How exquisite…”

I couldn’t see him. There was no excuse. There was only my father rebuking me on the phone that I couldn’t even buy an engagement ring for my fiancée. I tried to explain to him, but he couldn’t get it and there was no way to show him without telling the truth, but that I couldn’t do. He was embarrassed for me, I felt it, and it was painful, so in the end, when he told he was sending me money, I finally snapped and went and bought a ring for Caro. It was a cheap, but pretty thing. She liked it, I guess. She probably thought I was trying to speed up the process, and if she really wanted to marry me, I think, we’d start the preparations for real, but we didn’t – Caro, bless her, isn’t much into guilt-tripping, so now it was a ring and a balloon and another dose of likes on Instagram.

As diplomatically as I could, I told my dad to fuck off.

“I’m not you and Caro isn’t Mom, so just… Just let it go, ok? You don’t understand my life and you probably don’t approve of it, but don’t intervene. Just… I’m fine, Dad. Just give me time. I’m trying, I promise you, I’m trying to… to be the son you’ve always wanted. Maybe I’ll get there one day…”

He grunted. “Well, it’s not like…”

“We’ll be home for Christmas,” I cut him off. “Please, don’t waste it on lectures, ok?”

“Ok,” he replied quietly and hung up.

Caro dragged me to another anti-Trump demonstration… Ok, it’s not fair to her, she didn’t drag me anywhere – she invited me and I went. There, among those feverishly chanting people, I felt bizarrely at home. I got it. That’s what hope does to you – someone brought up the fact that Trump wasn’t technically elected until the electoral college voted for him on December 19, so now people went apeshit thinking that something that had never happened before would happen here and the electors would “vote their conscience for the good of America,” handing the presidency to anyone but Donald.

But it’s not people who decide elections in the US, it’s geography. Even if Michigan had 2 thousand left living there and California had 120 million, they’d still have 16 and 55 electors respectively, and there’s nothing you can do about it, short of amending the Constitution, which demands overwhelming support by the states.

Well, good luck with that in our country today. If Texas didn’t secede over same-sex marriage, it will over this and take the whole Bible Belt with it. No amount of hashtags or thumbs-downs will stop them. Ready?

I mean, even the crowd we were in couldn’t agree on what they really wanted – half were sure that the electors would never vote for Trump, another demanded the electoral college to be abolished outright.

“It’s not fucking fair!” some chick marching beside me shouted.

I didn’t know what she meant, I nodded anyway. It wasn’t.

But it was. We fooled around, drank champagne, lied and laughed that it could never happen, while half the country was fighting for drops of the trickle-down economy, buying necessities on credit and spending themselves into decades of debt, and now we were hoping that the electors would save us from ourselves and make the bad man go away.

Consequences.

Trump wasn’t the cause, he was the result.

You do something incredibly stupid, then run to Mommy for help and get furious when she is just standing there and frowning: with all our marches and chanting, the electors weren’t rushing to save us – Trump got 306 electoral votes on November 8 and he’ll get 304 on December 19, and with 270 being enough to become the President – spoiler alert! – he will. We needed 37 Republicans to change their minds, instead five Democrats abandoned Hillary – including one for Bernie Sanders and one for Faith Spotted Eagle – to, I don’t know, rub it in, probably, and show that even her own party didn’t like her very much.

(If you’re confused, just remember that here we don’t vote for president, we vote for the guys who’ll vote for president; and if there’s a tie, Congress decides. People are there mainly to wave banners and shout slogans. Hence, keep in mind that when we say that we want to bring you democracy, we don’t really know what we mean by it. Don’t hesitate, though, say “yes, please,” because we’re an impulsive nation and we have 11 aircraft carriers currently in service, which is at best 10, but most probably 11 more than you do… Just saying.)

So I was marching with a lot of confused and angry people and was confused and angry myself. Why Liza wasn’t calling? Why couldn’t she drop everything and rush to save my love life? Hm?

And I missed Armand. He wasn’t marching, of course. Not a very civic-minded creature, that one. He was probably sitting in his bright office, struggling to make someone’s fictionalized biography less drab than it really was. To each his own, I guess.

But I missed the bastard.

Yes, his ass, too. My rusticity didn’t let me miss them separately, they were a package in my mind. I’m not one of those people who can fall for a ghost or some such, I need something to hold on to in my love interest. Like, I’d never fall for a mermaid – too confusing. I mean, where would you… Well, you know what I mean. And same goes for mermen.

(Guillermo del Toro didn’t change my mind. Fuck off.)

Anyway, somehow we marched straight into the wedding.

No, not mine. A ring and a balloon aren’t enough for one, what you need is money, venue, guests and… love, I guess. But most of all, money, because you can love each other for free until kingdom come, but if you want a wedding then you need money, and if you want it in Midtown Manhattan - a shit-ton of it.

I don’t know how much Kayla Delman and Bruce Highbridge loved each other – I hope a lot – but they sure could throw a party. The best part was food, in my opinion, as it usually is when you don’t really know the couple. If you’ve never tried onion marmalade, caviar on lemon, raisin empanadas, lobster corn dogs or burnt orange vinaigrette – well, here was your chance. Of course, it didn’t come for free – it never does – because you had to bring a gift to justify your presence at this glorious event.

I suggested a blender. Caro laughed. The only problem was I wasn’t joking.

She suggested a photo frame. I laughed. The problem was I didn’t look at the price of the thing. It cost like a small spaceship.

A couple words about the rich and all this “they’re not like us” bullshit. Nonsense. They are exactly like you and me, minus the monthly “how will I pay my bills?” panic. In Otter’s the dick-measuring happens through grills, lawn mowers and TVs, here it’s the same shit, only sports cars, yachts and private jets are involved, but the psychology, excitement and glee are exactly the same.

So, you bring a gift to a wedding, and you, of course, add a card with your name, because they need to know if there’s any reason to invite or even say hello to you ever again. Exactly like in Otter’s.

We bought the frame. It brought me one step closer to driving an Uber and inspired my resolution to eat everything that would be on the menu, regardless of quality and portion sizes. Obesity or ulcers didn’t bother me, ROI did.

Well, as I said, they didn’t disappoint. That’s the downside of being rich – you can’t afford looking anything but, hence the lobsters, ice sculptures and a three-feet pièce montée of profiteroles in the center of the room, that everyone was giving a wide berth to, scared it’ll collapse on their Armanis and Pradas.

If it fell, it would’ve made my day, but it didn’t. It wasn’t touched in any way, just stood there as a big fuck you from Bruce to everyone who thought the bride could’ve done better. 

Caro and I had a similar problem, only my pièce montée was safely tucked in my pants, so my counterarguments seemed weaker. I danced with two of the bridesmaids, both let me know that they were extremely surprised Caroline Hammer and I had made it this far. Both were dating some hedge fund boys, could fly a glider plane and were on Adderall.

Why am I saying all this? Well, because if your strategy is, ok, I’ll buy an overpriced gift, get into one of these parties and find myself a poor little rich girl who’s waiting for a shoulder to cry on, then you’re in for a rough awakening, pal. If you’re looking for an easy mark with a fat purse, start looking elsewhere, because this poor little rich girl doesn’t exist now, if she ever did.

Yeah, she’d fuck a bellhop, true, but she’ll marry the hotel owner, and if you’re not him, then don’t be surprised when the lovemaking leaves you feeling sore. These little sunshines start their day with _WSJ_, know exactly how their daddy’s stock is doing at any given moment and can feel the size of your trust fund a mile away, while simultaneously quoting Chomsky with a straight face. You’ll soon realize that you speak different languages: your principal is some Mr. Smith from Pensacola High and hers is 38 million bucks, residing somewhere in Zurich, that even IRS will never touch, let alone you.

In short, they aren’t dumb - they can’t afford it, either. Possibly the only thing you might have in common is that they hate Trump, too; but even here you’re a world apart - they hate Trump because he’s _your _idea of _them_: egotistic, excessive, full of shit. Wake up, it’s not that simple.

You want to date a rich girl, date someone like Caro, who’s firmly middle class by New York standards and simply went to schools with some of these people. She can’t fly a glider, but she’s smart, too, so you’ll have your work cut out for you anyway.

Where was I? Ah, right, dancing with the bridesmaids, one at a time. We got along, actually - they both complimented my jacket, I said something nice about their Louboutins. Then the Shania Twain was announced – not the real one – and the floor was cleared for the bride and groom.

Rich people – better shoes, same cheesy music.

I returned to my grilled cumin scented organic chicken and got all melancholy, drinking champagne, murmuring _From This Moment _and eye-fucking Armand from across the room.

Oh, yeah, he was there too. With Estelle, of course. She looked excellent in an icy blue sheath dress, he looked better in a fitting light gray suit. I’d been so starved for his company, I was following him like a hawk, trying to find a moment and corner him somewhere, but the only time I saw him heading to the bathroom was when I was dancing with someone and abandoning my partner and rushing after him would’ve been noticed, so I stuffed myself with organic chicken and kept on starving. 

I stole a handshake though. Some people steal a kiss, but in my case even a handshake was something. It happened when we all just arrived. I prolonged it as much as possible, until he pried his hand from mine, gave me a stink eye and retired to his table.

And it would’ve been another pointless day in a long row of pointless days that month, if, after all this champagne, I hadn’t felt the need to visit the bathroom myself at some point. I didn’t stay there for long. In fact, I stormed out of it with crazy eyes and shaking hands and ran straight to Armand, not giving a damn who saw or what they might think.

There was a free chair beside him and no Estelle on the horizon, so I parked myself there and grabbed his half-empty champagne.

“What happened to you?” he sighed.

“The father of the bride’s just tried to kiss me in the men’s room,” I reported and emptied the glass.

His head swiveled in my direction so fact, I thought he’d break something. “Norton?” he stared.

“Well, we kinda skipped the introduction part…”

“You sure it was?..”

“It’s your fault,” I didn’t let him finish. “I met you, and now everyone knows I’m into old guys.”

“Timothée…” he sighed again.

“Timothée what? Something’s different about me. Everyone knows!”

“He was probably drunk…”

“Yeah, same as you.”

He turned to check if anyone was listening, but his table was discussing something else and no one paid us any attention. “I deeply regret what happened,” he glanced back at me. “I…”

“And I deeply regret you’re sober now,” I interrupted. “Hold my hand, or I’ll grab your balls.”

He didn’t know what to do, so I helped him. “I won’t give another warning.”

He scanned the room again, then patted my hand, as if it was the same. I grabbed it and put it on my knee.

“Ahhhh…” I groaned contentedly. “So much better. I’m traumatized, I swear… Will you kick his ass?” I opened one eye and squinted at him.

“Whose?”

“This Norton guy. For poaching.”

Armand chuckled. “Did he get far?”

“He sneaked up on me,” I told him, “I turned and pissed on his shoes.”

“Then I’m avenged,” he smiled and his hand slipped from mine. “You should return to your table.”

“I will,” I nodded and stole a walnut from his plate. Then my eyes traveled to his knees and stayed there – he was sitting with his legs spread wide open and the fabric of his suit got really tight around his balls, leaving few things to imagination.

“My eyes are right here,” he said drily.

“I don’t give a damn about your eyes,” I licked my lips reflexively.

He changed his position.

I snorted. “What, you think you’ll cross your legs and I’ll give up?” I shook my head. “Wrong century, dear. Wrong genre.”

“Go back to your…”

“On a scale from one to ten, how much do you want to kiss me right now?” I interrupted. “Say ten.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll run back and ask Norton - he was going on twenty when I left him.”

That he didn’t like. “It’s truly astonishing that these things keep happening to you,” he sighed. “I’ve known him for years… It’s really bizarre. You sure it wasn’t a misunderstanding?”

“He grabbed my ass!” I cried. “He called me _sweetie_!”

“Ok, ok,” Armand mumbled, avoiding curious eyes. “Keep your voice down, please.”

“Why are you so fucking placid?” I fumed. “It’s outrageous! I’m his guest!”

“Maybe… I don’t know, maybe he’s distraught over Kayla getting married…”

“What do I have to do with it?” I demanded. “He should jump Bruce if he’s so distraught! No, it’s not that… It’s that they feel it… wounded antelope, and they pounce. We have to hurry, I’m not safe in this city!” I told him urgently.

“Hurry where?” he raised a brow.

“Yes, that’s a good question,” I agreed. “But if I had you, you’d scare everyone off, you know?”

Instead of replying, he poured me another glass.

“I’ll want to pee again,” I looked at it gloomily, and he took it away. “Now say ten.”

“Ten,” he gave up.

“Good boy,” I nodded. “I want to kiss you, too, and these sandwiches are truly amazing,” I snatched one from his plate.

“Crostini,” he smiled.

“I want them at our wedding,” I told him and took another one. They were really something – smoked salmon and cream cheese topping.

“Sure,” he shrugged. “No problem.”

I stopped chewing. “You think I meant Caro, don’t you?”

He did. He seemed as blindsided as I did at the urinals when someone’s paw materialized between my cheeks.

“Now is your turn to say that it’s out of the question and I’m delirious,” I helped him.

“It goes without saying,” he deadpanned.

“Armand, Armand,” I sighed, “mark my words, one day you’ll get down on your geriatric knee and ask me to marry you. You will. As God is my witness,” I winked. “Know what I’ll say?”

“If you’re planning the wedding menu already, I can guess,” he rolled his eyes.

“Right, right,” I nodded. “Should’ve added ‘spoiler alert.’”

“Timothée…”

“Armand…”

This gloomy staring at each other was familiar and ridiculous, and we couldn’t keep it up for long.

“Still ten?” I smiled.

“Still.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

“You keep away from the bathroom,” he chuckled.

“Yeah, I’ll piss in a cup for the rest of the night,” I sighed and started to get up. “Oh, Estelle… you look smashing,” I made a little bow on seeing her approach.

And back to nothingness, and waiting, and not knowing, and asking yourself, “What are you waiting for? Is there anything really to wait for?” and Liza not calling, and long, long, long days and longer, longer nights.

If I could edit my life, I’d cut this part out, splice it into a series of amusing random episodes. Boredom, waiting, doubts aren’t very cinematic. When the plot starts to drag, you insert a “three months later” subtitle and jump forward, leaving the banality behind.

Journalism follows these rules too. Want to write about refugees, unemployment, urban decay – start with something funny, relatable, upbeat. Make them get to the second paragraph at least, if you can’t, you’re doomed.

T.S. Eliot – people cannot bear very much reality.

No, they can’t. That’s why so many marriages disintegrate. Rainy Mondays and stacks of dirty dishes in the sink aren’t very cinematic. We crave excitement - mundanity ravishes souls. Cheating is forgivable, disappointing ordinariness isn’t.

I didn’t have a nice subtitle for December, I had to slog through it. If I didn’t have hope, I would’ve jumped off the bridge; but if I didn’t have hope, I would’ve never wanted to.

Oh, well…

Finally, Christmas was right ahead. Caro and I were planning to spend it with my parents, and I found myself trying to prepare both sides for this Elbe Day.

My mother is a no-nonsense girl most of the time, but she can come up with some misguided ideas too, so I wasn’t particularly surprised when she started asking what to cook for Caro.

“We can buy sushi, you know?” she told me on the phone.

“Yeah, don’t forget strawberries either. She likes them in December,” I sighed.

“Strawberries?”

“Mom, she’s not a princess, and I don’t want you to treat her like a princess, ok? You’ll only embarrass her. Make your lamb. You were going to, right? Well, I love it, it’s delicious. My girlfriend will love it, too, I’m sure.”

“Your fiancée,” she corrected.

“Oh, Jesus…” I groaned. “But, while we’re on topic – I don’t want any marriage conversations, you hear me?”

“Well, we had some ideas…”

“Exactly!” I interrupted. “I don’t want you to give her _any_ ideas. M-word is off limits while we are there.”

I still hadn’t quite gotten over those moments at Kayla’s wedding when the bride threw the bouquet and I was watching it flying in slow-mo - my balls shrinking - as inch by agonizing inch it got closer to Caro’s hands, thinking, “Fuck, if she catches it, my goose is cooked. They’ll marry us, after all.”

She didn’t. Some other girl did, so my balls returned to normal and someone else’s collapsed. 

“I’ll make lamb,” my mom huffed.

“Great,” I nodded. “Any other questions?”

“What’s happening?”

I wanted to give a nonchalant reply, but I knew it would offend her. She was worried – being glib wouldn’t help. “When I can, I’ll tell you,” I promised. “Honestly.”

She was quiet. “I’ll make spinach pasties, too. It’s vegetarian,” she said. “And a French potato casserole.”

“Thank you,” I smiled. “I owe you.”

“Take care, Timmy. Please.”

I said I would, and the shuttle diplomacy continued – Caro wanted to know about the gifts. She was torn between a clutch and a neckerchief for my mom, and as my dad frankly intimidated her - which he does to me too sometimes – she had no idea what to give him at all.

She showed me the clutch. I couldn’t imagine my mom with it. I had no idea if she needed something like this. It was suitable for a theater or a restaurant, and Otter’s had neither. We had a couple of diners and we had a library with a book club that sometimes organized poetry evenings and things like that. My mom was in that book club, but she hated poetry, as far as I knew, so I didn’t know if she needed a clutch.

On the other hand, you think, maybe she needs a dish set or a multifunctional mop, and immediately realize that you’re an asshole, who can’t imagine his mother outside of the kitchen.

So I looked at the neckerchief and said that it was more like it - any woman anywhere would know what to do with a Hermès. As to my dad, some quality booze would always be welcome, I knew it: just don’t buy wine – we have different dads.

She nodded. “What should I wear?”

“Take what you wore in Maine and add a couple more layers. It’s Michigan and it’s December,” I instructed. “And no high heels – there are snowdrifts there by now.”

I thought I sounded authoritative and knowledgeable – a head of the household in the making with my woman listening attentively, properly awe-struck. Yeah, right. No man is a hero to his valet. Caro had known me long enough by then to know that she needed a second opinion. She got it.

Two days before our departure, she came to me again and showed me what a classy man gives for Christmas.

First, there was a shawl. A huge black silk triangle with cream-and-silver roses embroidered on it – a real flamenco shawl with seemingly endless tassels, shimmering playfully. With her arms open, Caro looked like a big black bird, her wings spread wide. I gaped. I’d never seen anything like it, except on the pictures.

“One of Dad’s friends was returning from Málaga,” she shrugged. “He asked him to bring it.”

“Your dad?” I blinked.

“Yes,” she said and folded it quickly. “He got this for me, too.” She showed me a small rectangular box. I opened it, there was a simple but beautiful hunting knife inside.

“It’s French. Handmade,” Caro told me. “Dad says they are considered the best.”

I stroked the handle, where the combination of light and dark woods produced a sharp ornament.

Yes, it was something. No, I wasn’t grateful. I was outraged - Mr. Hammer and his big balls back in town.

“Oh, come on…” Caro rolled her eyes.

“What?” I folded my arms. “Will your dad choose our china and bed sheets, too?”

“He only wanted to help,” she snatched the box from me.

“He wanted to help…” I nodded.

If he wanted to help, he’d get one-way tickets to Barbados for the two of us. _That_ would be helpful. But no, he went and bought gifts for my parents, good gifts, just one look at which would tell my folks that this was a match I couldn’t fuck up.

“Get over yourself,” she rolled her eyes.

“Did he buy something for me?” I asked.

“No,” she shrugged. “Why would he?”

Of course. Why would he? Maybe I wanted a shawl, too, but who gives a fuck, right?

My fingers itched to send him another angry message. I didn’t know how I stopped myself – maybe all this adulthood talk was messing with my natural instincts.

I gave him gloves – I gave enough for one glove, at least – and what? And nothing. I should’ve pissed on _his_ shoes, not on Norton’s, that poor bastard just craved affection, nothing wrong here, while I was wasting my youth on an unfeeling block of ice.

You wait, I promised myself, when the time comes, you’ll woe the days of your neglect – some don’t get up from the bed for less than 10 grand; well, others don’t go there for less. People like me, for example.

I’m a respectable Michiganian girl, and I want to be treated accordingly, damn you!

“No high heels, woman,” I shook my finger at Caro.

“Jesus, ok…”

Early on December 24, when we flew to Michigan, I was still a bit pissed. He, of course, called his daughter ten times asking about this and that; my fate, I presumed, wasn’t part of the conversation – that plane was important only because Caro was onboard; if I was sucked out of a window somewhere over Mississauga – oh, how unfortunate!

Well, I wasn’t, I lived to tell about his black, black heart. We landed safely, I pulled Caro’s scarf up to her eyebrows, kissed the bridge of her nose for courage, grabbed her hand and led her to the bus, through the howling wind and snow. After which there were miles and miles of white, interrupted by an occasional gas station, hardware store or a Subway, as we drove to Otter’s.

Caro was curious, for the first ten minutes, then reconciled herself to the fact that trees and snow were all she was going to see and went back to her phone. I watched the passing landscape and smiled.

Michigan is mostly hope. It’s only the belief that the final destination exists that helps you through, though the knowledge that it does kills you sometimes. If you’re prone to depression, get the fuck out. What are you doing in the place where the next shrink is five towns away?

When we feel down, we drink. When we don’t, we hunt.

Jesus walked on water, we ride snowmobiles across it.

We’ve had man-eating bears and scarier people. It’s a tremendous, fierce, lonely, heart-wrenching land, and you haven’t seen a sunset until you’ve seen it on our lakes; just don’t get depressed here – too much sky and no way out. Don’t.

Home of the water, Canada’s daughter…

Hope against hope – Michigan.

Madonna left; Proof stayed and died, two bullets to the chest.

When it comes to overcoming there is no one above thee – Michigan.

I missed you, darling. I didn’t know you were still singing in my blood. Beautiful in December, as always. Cold and impregnable like Greta Garbo. Well done, Mitten, you’ll outlive us all. Well done.

My mother met us at the station and was all over Caro immediately. Here too, I was mostly an afterthought – don’t forget the bags, Tim; open the trunk, Tim; get in the back, Tim.

“Mrs. Chalamet,” Caro smiled.

“Oh, please! Eleanor,” my mom hugged her.

Of course.

The prodigal son returned, but feminism had outpaced him.

“Your dad brought a skunk last week,” Mom glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

Caro looked startled. “She means an animal,” I chuckled. “Great, let’s have a skunk for Christmas.”

“I prepared the lamb,” Mom frowned. “And spinach pasties,” she turned to Caro. “Spinach is fine?”

“Oh, sure. Spinach is… I like spinach,” my fiancée smiled radiantly.

Jesus.

It’s like coming to a Trump rally and seeing all these “Fuck Your Feelings” t-shirts for the first time. I had a major drama going on in my life – and no one cared.

We were turning onto our street, and it struck me how small it really was. I’d been back to Otter’s since moving to New York, but maybe it was seeing all this through Caro’s eyes, or at least trying to, that made the difference. Several houses were decorated with lights, including ours. We’d rarely done it before – too much hassle – but there was a guest this time, so Mom went all Holiday Inn on our porch. The driveway and the walkway were neatly cleared. Covered in snow, my house looked as pretty as one inside a crystal ball, with flitter floating around.

We had barely come in, when Mom pulled me aside, “How do you want to sleep?”

“What do you mean?” I stared at her.

“Do you sleep together?”

“Subtle, Mom,” I nodded. “Very subtle.”

“We can unfold the couch in the living room for you.”

“No, thanks.” I knew that couch, it was as smooth as a Detroit road. “We’ll sleep in my room.”

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

“Nothing’s going on,” I whispered back. “Take care of the lamb, and I’ll do the rest.”

Caro, of course, heard bits and pieces and concluded that my mom didn’t want us to sleep together, so I was again sent to that damn couch and had to fight my way back to my student bed.

“Let’s go, I’ll show you the town,” I told Caro when we finished unpacking. “Don’t worry, you won’t get cold - it’s five streets and one square, more or less.”

We went. I showed her my school, our cinema, the post office my mom worked in, my dad’s office and the town hall building. She found it funny that everyone we met knew me, but that’s how it is in a place like this – for security you pay with anonymity. There are no such things as public and private scandals in Otter’s – there are only scandals. Want to cheat on your spouse – better take a bus; otherwise it’s shouting, broken windows, crying children, and my father is called to another domestic dispute.

I couldn’t wait to bring Armand here.

I couldn’t wait.

Sightseeing over, we returned home, where Mom fed Caro a solid dose of my childhood humiliations. She carefully left out my high school girlfriend, but that time I had my hand stuck in the drain, that of course was mentioned.

I’m a gentleman, so I kept my mouth shut, but I know a story or two about Mom, too. For example, that she fell out of a second-floor window and broke her ankle while sneaking out to meet with my father at night. How do I know it? Dad told me. Who else would? If it wasn’t for Jim Beam, I’d probably still think that my parents were irreproachable celestial beings, incapable of a dumb mistake; but evenings are long here and temperatures are low, and since I turned seventeen, my dad saw me as a friend occasionally. So, yeah, I know things.

Meanwhile, Mom and Caro became so buddy-buddy that a bottle of sherry materialized on the kitchen table, then the skunk was dragged out of the freezer - look what my man can do! – with a couple of squirrels in tow, and then Caro was talking about her work, and the wedding we’d just been to, and Gloria Steinem and Playboy; and I thought, fuck, I’m outta here, and escaped to my dad’s toolshed in the backyard, where I found a stack of planks, probably prepared for the attic, and sanded them.

We had a lovely quiet Christmas dinner. My dad put on his Sunday best, wearing a jacket to the table, where several thick red candles were flickering inside a fir wreath. There was talk about weather, and work, and rising prices, and neighbors; but also Jimmy Kimmel, and Frank Sinatra, and Al Pacino, and Walter Cronkite, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. My father couldn’t stay away from his favorite topic of how city people think hunting is barbaric, because they don’t understand it; so Caro mentioned vegetarian meat and asked what he thought about it, and they spent another half an hour discussing that.

In short, everything but politics and marriage was mentioned; and I suspect I had Mom to thank for it.

Looking at my Dad, I caught myself thinking about Armand again. They had nothing in common in terms of appearance – Dad is a stocky brunet, with a small pouch and a thick mustache – but they were close in a different way. I’d never thought about my father as young, to be honest, and I suddenly realized that he was only fifty-two. Just fifty-two.

What would I say if he fell in love with someone my age? I had to ask myself. Would I think it freaky? Would I judge him? Would I find it in me to be kind to him?

What if it were a guy?..

I couldn’t imagine it.

And yet, if everything went well, I expected Caro to accept the same gracefully, to be generous, to look at her own father and see a man, to acknowledge that she never really knew him and still be able to love him.

If everything went well, I expected a different person sitting here next year and for my father, his world turned upside down, to be courteous to him, the guy his own age sleeping with his son…

Later we’d go and shoot off fireworks in our backyard. Inky blue sky, endless snow, sharp light illuminating Caro’s face with every sparkle blossoming in the darkness like an exotic golden flower. I took her hand in mine, kissed her temple and hugged her.

Thank you, you beautiful, wonderful girl, thank you. You’ve changed my life. You don’t know it yet, but you’ve changed my life, and I’m going to change yours, though you don’t it yet, either.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“For what?” she smiled.

“For coming here. For everything.”

Another sparkling chrysanthemum burst and melted. We were the only ones on our street who did fireworks on Christmas, and when the last one was lit and fired, it became again dark and cold and we went inside, where Mom got out old family albums and showed Caro what her fiancé looked like at three – cute, but no Robert Redford even then.

Next day were the gifts. My parents gave Caro a beechwood jewelry box, with a beautiful bushy-tailed squirrel on its lid, carved by our local woodworker. Inside there was a pair of wooden earrings in the form of a pine tree. I think she liked it, though I don’t remember her ever wearing them.

I got a Moleskine with my embossed initials in the lower right corner. Mom hugged me and whispered that there’d be some money, too. Later.

Then Caro brought out Armand’s gifts, though no one mentioned his name then. My parents were, of course, very happy, and I caught my father looking at me meaningfully – this is the girl to keep.

Hold your horses, I rolled my eyes, you don’t know who bought this knife for you, my friend. But don’t worry, I’ll keep him, too.

It was only the second day, but I saw already that Caro was bored. Nothing much to do here, really. So I offered to give her a ride on a snowmobile - we flew through the woods, and I remembered how the snow can get to you, if you’re not careful – billions of unique beautiful pieces making up a mosaic of pristine white death. Don’t try to hate it, though – gods rarely respond, but unerringly punish.

She didn’t see it, I think – it was sunny and the ground rainbow-burned like a window of the Tiffany store on 5th Ave. When we returned, I left her with my mom and went to help Dad with the clogged garbage disposal in the kitchen.

That’s it. That’s how it is in my hometown. If you’re seventy, there’s no better place to be. If you’re twenty-five, you better be somewhere else, to be honest. 

I was glad Caro was with me, and I was miserable that _he_ wasn’t. I’d check my phone from time to time – no life-saving messages from unfamiliar numbers – and go back to my longing.

You have until January 1, Liza, I told myself. I’m not going to drag this into the next year. Too many people are involved already. It’s turning into a European arthouse movie – three hours of screen time, two words, one action, plus a heavy dose of heavy looks. No, thank you. Until January 1, then I…

Well, I didn’t know what I’d do then, but it probably would be something very stupid, so she better called me before I had a chance. 

December 27, I woke up early, slipped from the bed quietly so as not to disturb Caro, grabbed my father’s coat and his boots and trudged through the fresh snow to the toolshed – phone in hand, battle-ready.

I hopped on the table and dialed. He picked up on a second beep.

“Timothee?” he sounded alarmed. “What happened?”

I closed my eyes. “I’m twenty-five,” I told him quietly. “And I miss you. I miss you so fucking much.”

I thought he’d go again with “you shouldn’t have called me,” “it’s not proper,” bullshit, but he didn’t.

“Happy birthday,” he said and I heard a smile in his voice.

“Anything else?”

“Everything else.”

I nodded. “What’re you doing?”

“Just got back from a run.”

“How’s your stamina?”

“Can’t complain,” he chuckled.

“Will I?”

Sigh. “Timothée…”

Sigh. “Armand…”

“How’s my daughter?”

“Your daughter is fine. My mom taught her to walk in snowshoes yesterday, and I gave her a ride around the woods. Small-town America agrees with her. Back to your stamina. I think you’re like wine – you get better with age.”

“What if I’m like milk? Just get sour.”

“If you’re like milk, you’ll get cheesy,” I replied.

“God forbid,” he mumbled.

“What did you get me?”

“Get you?”

“For my birthday,” I nodded. “And don’t even try this ‘love is priceless’ bullshit – I want something material. I’m a material girl.”

He smiled, I think. “What do you want?”

“Something no one else’s ever had.”

“Know where to buy it?”

“Know where to start,” I bit my lip. “Tell me a secret.”

He didn’t reply.

“Ok,” I whispered. “I’ll go first. All my life I’ve been afraid I’ll become my father. I love him so much, but I pity him too, I can’t help it,” I closed my eyes. “If he finds out, it’ll break his heart.”

“Funny,” he said after a pause. “All my life I’ve wanted _to be_ my father. But he knows I’m not, and it breaks his heart.”

I thought about Chris Hammer, all those photos on the wall, his history. “Famous, you mean?”

He sighed. “A legend.”

“Well, many artists get there only after they die,” I said lamely.

He snorted. “Oh, yes, then I probably should.”

“Jesus, no, I didn’t mean… Look, it’s the Internet age – you can slip on a diving board and become a legend now. You know what a meme is?”

I suspect he didn’t want to, but he laughed. “You can sell even obscurity, my friend.”

“I’m a journalist,” I shrugged. “I can sell anything. Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“A secret. Real, not plagiarized this time.”

He got quiet again. I waited. “The morning of 9/11,” he said finally, “I was with a lover.”

I choked on air. Something, probably a squirrel, was running on the roof, and some snow fell through the cracks, light as ashes. Cold winter silence coated my lungs like nicotine. 

“In bed?” I whispered.

“Almost.”

“Did you love… him?”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I thought so.”

I realized my hands were freezing, and my nose, and my chest, and my blood. “Why did you tell me this?”

“You asked,” he replied calmly.

“You could say anything else. That you used to steal from a beggar on the corner. That you copied your book from someone. You could… Why _this_?”

“You need to stop idealizing me, Timothée.”

I frowned. “And then what? Ah, right, then I’ll stop loving you. Of course.”

“You’ll get over your… infatuation with me. Yes.”

I didn’t bother to argue about the “infatuation” thing. “Sure, because my young, pea-sized brain can’t handle the fact that real people are more complicated than their Facebook profile or Twitter biography.”

“I didn’t mean that you’re stupid, you’re simply…”

“Shallow,” I nodded. “Is that why you’re still in the closet? Because you think people want only the picture-perfect version of you?”

“I won’t disc…”

“It was fifteen years ago, Armand,” I interrupted. “Do you know what I was doing then? I took my bike and was going to drive it off our garage roof. And I would’ve, if my mom hadn’t spotted me in time. Would’ve broken my spine, too. So what, you can’t love me now because I was a fucking idiot fifteen years ago?”

“You were a child,” he sighed.

“And you think I still am,” I scowled. “And 9/11? What the fuck does it have to do with anything? That morning no one knew that it was 9/11! But no! Expected me to be horrified, didn’t you?”

“I expected you to get angry,” he replied. “You are.”

“Hell yes, I am. You know why? Because I suspect that’s the song you’re going to sing when I come to you later and ask you the question that I asked you in the park. You’re going to strike a dramatic pose and tell me again how it’s not possible between us.

“Well, fuck you! Start searching for a better excuse then, because my engagement won’t last - and you probably know that it won’t last – and then it’ll be time to man up and face the music. No hiding behind your daughter, or what the fuck happened during Nixon administration.

“You keep wasting time, you idiot, and we don’t have much anyway. What is it, twenty years before your Alzheimer’s kicks in? And then what? Then _what_?”

He didn’t reply.

“Ah, fuck you! Fuck you, Armand! Goodbye!”

I stormed out of the shed, saw a heap of fresh snow nearby, stuck my head into it and screamed.

I… seriously don’t recommend it.

No, really.

Splash yourself with water, if you need to. Snow is… very cold, and it grows a thin crust overnight, so when you plunge… Well, the phrase “knock yourself out” comes to mind.

I don’t recommend it.

But damn it! That’s the trouble with falling for old people – they’ll cheat on you before you are in 6th grade. I was jealous, of course. God, was I jealous! I thought his lover died in the 80s, that I could forgive, but no, no, he had to go and fuck someone when I was already born.

Women I didn’t count for some reason. Maybe because I suspected he didn’t count them either. But a thought of him with another man, still living man, that was just… Urghh…

I brushed the snow from my face, the red receded a bit and I saw my mom. She was standing on the back porch, fresh laundry in her arms, her mouth hanging open at the sight of her only child screaming into a snowdrift.

“Want me to help you with…” I sniffed, inhaling the snow that got into my nostrils, and motioned at the laundry.

She glanced at the sheets, then at me. “Caroline was asking about you.”

“Ok,” I nodded and was on my way inside, but stopped and looked at her once again. “Don’t tell Dad.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“I simply miss snow,” I wiped my face. “But don’t tell Dad.”

You’d think she’d let it go, but no, she’s Mom, and she’s married to a hunter, so she caught me while Caro took a moment to check her e-mail and I was going to sneak out for a walk around the neighborhood.

“Help me?” she shook a small bucket of potatoes in her hand.

“I don’t want to peel potatoes,” I whined.

“I don’t want to cook your dinner, either,” she replied pleasantly.

I took off my boots and followed her to the kitchen. I had no illusion about her motivation, so I wasn’t surprised when, as soon as we settled on two low stools – armed with peelers, a trash can between us – she went after it.

“May I ask what’s going on?”

“It’s complicated,” I grunted.

“So there’s someone else.”

I looked up.

“What? It’s usually no more complicated than that,” she shrugged.

“In this case, it is.”

She scratched the potato, once, twice. “How?”

“Mom, we can’t talk about it here,” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder.

“She’s with someone else, too?”

I sighed. “No. Yes! But that someone else, that’s not the problem.”

I thought that was the end of it, but… “She is Jewish?”

I blinked. “Jewish? No. Why?”

“Well, they are complicated people,” she frowned. “Different fridges for meat and dairy – that’s complicated.”

“Oh, Jesus…”

“Yes, this too.”

“She is not Jewish, ok?” I groaned. “She’s… fickle. Yes, fickle. Can’t commit. A damn tease, is what she is. Sighs and sighs – and then nothing! But beautiful, so goddamn beautiful…” I nodded to myself. “Drives me crazy, you know?”

Mom nodded sympathetically and continued peeling. “Well, beautiful I can understand, but…”

“No, that’s different. There’s pretty and then there is… she.” 

I should’ve shut up at that, but she is curious and I’m talkative, and that’s a match made in hell. So I grabbed another potato and started scratch-scratch-scratching it. “It was at first sight, Mom. Nothing you can do. With these things, when you know - you know. You know?”

She frowned. “So you want to marry this other girl, right?”

“Well, yes, I guess. But I suspect I’ll wait till the cows come home, before she proposes.”

“You want her to…”

“Sure, why should I do everything? She’s a big girl,” I chuckled. “And I love that too. Never thought I would, but it feels great – strong arms, big warm hug. Best thing in the world. Very soothing.”

She frowned again. “You surprise me.”

“Yeah, I know. I didn’t expect it either. I always believed I loved one thing and then it’s the other. I was a bit shocked, too, at first, but then… Look, some say stupid shit about this, but they are morons. They used to say this about mixed marriages, too. Unnatural! What’s more natural than loving another person? Right?”

“No, no, unnatural… Why unnatural? I mean the Haleys seem happy together,” she shrugged.

“The Haleys?”

“Well, Linda is a formidable woman.”

That she was, certainly. Three times as formidable as Grant, her husband.

“No, that’s too far,” I shook my head. “He’s not that big. Tall, sure, but not… You’ve overshot a bit,” I chuckled.

She didn’t say anything. I finished with the potato I was peeling and looked at her. She had the strangest expression on her face – as if that skunk opened the freezer and said hello suddenly.

“You alright?” I frowned.

“A… boy?”

“What b…”

_Ope! There goes gravity… Ope! There goes…_

I dropped the potato and it rolled away, jumping on every bump in the floor. If there were any spaghetti for breakfast, it would’ve been on my sweater by now.

“I misspoke,” I tried to laugh. She was watching me without blinking. I scrambled after that damn potato, tried to pick it up, dropped it again. “Slip of the tongue. I mean, he/she, it’s just… It happens. What I mean is… a girl, of course. Of course! Of course, it’s a girl. Like always. Ha-ha! There’s no… What I mean is…”

“Oh, Timmy…” she whispered.

This is the thing, you go back to Michigan, you go back to Marshall Mathers III and the quiet desperation that keeps an AR-15 under the bed. My dear Sundance, no matter how fast and how far you run, you’ll end up pointing your gun at a bank teller, anyway; and no matter how steady your hand and how true your aim, there’s never enough bullets to stop them all from coming. Because that sheriff was right, you see, you may be the biggest thing that ever hit this area, but you’re still a two-bit outlaw on the dodge, and that fade to black was the kindest thing your author had to offer.

“What I mean is… What I… What I mean is don’t tell Dad,” I swallowed. “That’s what I mean.”

That snowed-in silence came again, enveloped us both. She blinked first, looked at her wet hands and wiped them on her apron.

“Well, that’s definitely more complicated than I thought,” she said quietly.

“Don’t tell Dad,” I repeated.

She frowned, as if she had forgotten she had a husband.

“What are you thinking?”

“Well, I know that these things… happen,” she replied slowly. “I just didn’t think… it’d happen… to me.”

_Lonely roads got him, he knows he’s grown farther from home, he’s no father… _

“What? A gay son?”

We stared at each other again.

“But the girls?..” she started.

_Hold your nose, ’cause here goes the cold water… _

“There won’t be any more girls after Caro,” I looked at her steadily.

“No?”

“No.” I breathed deeper, had to ask it, “Can you forgive me?”

“Forgive?” her voice became smaller. “Yes. But this boy, he…”

“Let’s get back to potatoes,” I stopped her. Truth should be administered in small doses. Telling her that the “boy” was fifty wouldn’t have done anyone any good at the moment. “Peel.”

“But, Timmy…”

“Peel, Mom, peel. The boy will be fine. One day you’ll meet him, I promise, now peel. I can’t talk about it now, I won’t. Peel, or I’ll go stick my head in the snow again…” I told her honestly.

I led by example and she had no choice but to follow. I’d catch her staring at me and she’d look away hastily and start blushing, and then I’d blush too. And no matter how fast I finished one potato and grabbed another, that damn bucket seemed bottomless.

_And there's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer…_

“Don’t freak out in front of Caro. I have to know I can count on you,” I turned and told her on my way out of the kitchen.

“But…”

“I never told Dad you read _Fifty Shades of Grey. _You owe me,” I smiled sadly.

She narrowed her eyes.

“Hold it,” I said firmly.

She more or less did. Even though Caro would later tell me that she thought my mom seemed strange that day. I assured her it was due to holidays fatigue, what with my 25th birthday thrown in the mix.

We almost left there unscathed, but there was nothing really to do in the evening, so it was decided that we’d go to the cinema, the famous one that Bill Clinton gifted us with.

Caro and I had already seen _La La Land_, my dad hates musicals and my mom occasionally likes indies. So it was _Moonlight_. I’d never heard of it and didn’t much care. Well, I started to, as soon as I realized which way the wind was blowing.

How the fuck did they manage to bring this small movie to Otter’s is a question for the ages. But it was something like an Oscars week there, so out of everything released that year I had to sit through the only gay flick that found its way to my dear little town.

I watched _Sopranos_ with my dad. Once. As soon as a stripper appeared, he sent me back to my room. He was fine with me seeing Tony whacking people without breaking a sweat, but a pair of tits was a step too far. The difference is – that time I wasn’t the one wanting for the earth to swallow me whole.

Someone once said that your age is measured by the amount of humiliation you’re able to withstand. Well, I certainly grew up a bit more in that darkened cinema. Try turning in the middle of the movie, looking your mom in the eye and seeing yourself jerking off some dude on the beach there.

Time breaks. New paragraph begins. In a small way, she knows she’s lost you. She can no longer solve your problems as easily as dragging you off the garage roof or grounding you for a week. She no longer understands the problems you have. You grew up and, in all probability, not in a man she wanted you to be. So she is grateful it’s dark here, too, because she’s not used to this new knowledge, and is afraid to hurt you, and can’t stop doing it anyway. It takes an effort to love you now, maybe for the briefest of moments, but it does, and she doesn’t want you to see it. She really doesn’t want you to see it.

_Oh Mammy… Oh Mammy, Mammy Blue… Oh, Mammy Blue…_

Funny. No matter the circle of hell you’re going through, somebody has already been there and sang about it.

My dad, bless his heart, isn’t a cinephile and passed out within first thirty minutes, so he didn’t get that far. Caro loved it. And I don’t know about Mom, but I felt endless glee when they mixed the envelopes at the Oscars later, because I fucking hate this movie. It may be a gorgeous piece of cinema, but I’m still amazed my ears didn’t melt while watching it, they burned so hard. 

In the end, the best part of the day was the money that my parents gave me as a present and that saved me from living on the streets for another several months. Another gift I got when we landed back in New York and I checked my phone and saw a short message from an unfamiliar number:

“You’re welcome. Don’t fuck it up.”

I didn’t know what she meant, but I replied nevertheless:

“I won’t.”

Success was my only motherfuckin’ option, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this! If it's winter where you're, I hope it treats you kindly.


	12. Chapter 12

Nothing happened at first. We returned from Michigan, celebrated New Year’s with another bunch of Caro’s friends and went back to work. Whatever wizardry Liza had performed behind the scenes, I wasn’t feeling its effects in my everyday life. What I did feel, however, was the before and after of coming out to your parents, or a parent in my case.

As far as I could tell, Mom still kept this new knowledge to herself, which was good. What wasn’t, was her need to frequently discuss it with me, and because she couldn’t call in the evening, when Dad was around, she called me during the day, when we both were at work. I don’t think she intended to make it all very awkward, but, trust me, it was. Whenever your parents become interested in your sex life, it inevitably is.

No matter what she said, I just knew it – the one specific thing that really bothered her was the sexual aspect of it all. I think this is the real problem that we as a society have with homosexuality – in their minds people can’t help but reduce it to one dimension: sex. Specifically, anal sex. And if you try to call them out, then it’s suddenly, “Oh, don’t be so crude!”

But I’m not being crude, just realistic. All the disgust, questions, scolding, hate and aggression are really inspired by this one thing, which, ironically, a lot of gay men don’t even engage in. The truth is simple – every family is happy or unhappy in its own way, be it heterosexual or same-sex couple; but no, if you’re gay, people think that the only thing you’re obsessed with 24/7 is buttfucking. If you’re miserable, that must be the reason. If you’re smiling – same.

I hadn’t really understood it, while it was just me and Armand, but now, when other people became somehow involved, now I couldn’t escape it, and it made me mad. I think it’s like racism in a way. For example, children are genuinely colorblind. The basic characteristics they’d use for each other are “mean,” or “stupid,” or “nice,” or “tall.” If you hear a child saying, “This damn (insert a racial slur here)!” what you hear is not a racist child, but a racist parent behind them.

In short, labels come from the outside. 

To me, falling in love with a man didn’t mean turning into a fundamentally different person from the one I was before, and to my Mom it did.

“But how will it work?” she asked me.

I started locking myself in a bathroom stall for these conversations, because I didn’t want my colleagues to eavesdrop. Though, given that she called me almost every day now, my peculiar behavior still caused puzzlement, and when I had to admit that it was my mom I was talking to, I got all the attention I’d hoped to avoid.

“What do you mean?” I sighed.

She was silent. “I just don’t understand how it happened to you…”

“I fell in love,” I rubbed my forehead tiredly. “That’s how it happens.”

“And what about the children?”

“What children?” I frowned.

“You won’t have children now…”

“Why won’t I? We can adopt, there are surrogates…”

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” she said briskly.

“How would I know it, Mom? I’ve never lived through it! And how would _you_ know it? You’ve never adopted anyone as far as I know.”

“We thought about it,” she replied.

I sat straighter on the toilet. “You did?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened?”

“I got pregnant with you.”

“Well, then you know…”

“It’s not the same,” she interrupted.

“Ok, it’s not the same…” I sighed. “But why is it important at all? Why now? You didn’t sound particularly happy when you thought Caro was pregnant, so why?”

“I’m afraid that it’s all my fault,” she said instead of replying. “I’ve been reading this book, and they say that poor parenting, corrupt family dynamics, that mother…”

“Oh, Jesus Christ! Mom, stop, please! Don’t… What book? When was it published? Where did you get it?”

She sighed. “Let’s face it, Timmy, you didn’t have great female role models in your life…”

I was stupefied, frankly.

She continued. “I barely finished high school. My mother, too. And your Dad’s mom, well, you know how she is…”

Yep, my other grandma was a treat, one of those people who never missed a chance to tell you how wrong your everything was, from your teeth to your spirituality. The best thing about her was that she lived with my Dad’s older sister in Alberta, having moved there after cheap insulin.

“So what is it?” I chuckled. “You think internalized misogyny drove me to it?”

“I don’t know,” she replied quietly. “But as a parent, that’s on me.”

“You know how we can solve this problem?” I matched her gloomy tone.

“How?”

“By not seeing it as a problem,” I smiled. “You haven’t failed me in anything, and I neither hate women, nor secretly want to become one, ok? It’s not a psychological phenomenon, not a case study. I’m in love with a person. A person, not a set of genitals. Please, don’t make it even more awkward that it already is, I’m begging you. And please, please don’t use the local library as a source of information.”

“But this boy…” she began again.

“Forget about this boy,” I cut her off. “He’s still a pipe dream, technically.”

“He’s married?”

“Mom,” I sighed.

“You’ll tell me when…” she trailed off.

“I’ll tell you when,” I nodded. “Now get back to work.”

She did. A couple days later she called me to ask about my identity and gender, because she found this site, and there were so many, and she didn’t want to get it wrong by guessing.

“You don’t need this stuff,” I groaned.

“It concerns you,” she protested. “I want to know.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Are you fluid?”

“No, liquid.”

“You think it’s funny?” she sounded pissed. “It’s not funny to me.”

“Don’t they mention there, on your site, that it’s sort of sensitive, that you shouldn’t put a gun to someone’s head and demand an answer?”

“I’m your mother, you can tell me.”

End of discussion.

And just when I was ready to explode, Caro came through. Finally.

Between the two of us we mastered the art of cooking, more or less. Meaning that she knew how to boil things and I knew how to spice them. In terms of salt, pepper, bay leaf and ginger I became positively Schubert, so that night we had ourselves a fragrant casserole of ravioli. With mushrooms, but what can you do? If it was just me, it would’ve been ramen again, so I didn’t complain.

“I have news.”

I looked up and swallowed quickly. “News?”

“Well, it’s not news, really,” she shrugged. “I mean not to me – I knew for some time. It’s just something… I didn’t know what to think about it at first, but then…” she stared at the ceiling for a moment. “I was offered a job, Tim.”

“Ok,” I nodded slowly.

“It’s a good job. Well, not that it’s good, it’s… rather it’s important. Interesting. Similar to what I’m doing now, but on a bigger scale, you could say…”

“Ok,” I said again. “Great.”

“Yes,” she chewed her lip. “Three months trial period, then… Well, it wouldn’t really be a trial period, because the woman who runs it there, she knows my mom, so, I guess, it’s a straightforward invitation.”

“What’s the problem then?”

“It’s in Austin.”

“Austin… Texas?”

“Yeah.”

We sat in silence, then started talking simultaneously.

“I’ll say no…”

“When are you leaving?..”

“Leaving?” she blinked. “I’m not leaving. I’m not going to accept it.”

“When did you find out?”

“About a week ago, more or less. But I’m not going to accept it,” she said again.

“But you haven’t said no, either,” I glanced at her.

She looked away. “I said I’d have to think about it, discuss it with you…”

“But why are you turning it down?”

“Why?” she stared at me. “I have a life in New York, I have you… I can’t just pack my bags and… Anyway, my job here is important, too.”

“I thought you liked Austin,” I frowned.

“I love Au…” her eyes narrowed. “It sounds like you want me to go, Tim.”

It did, because I did. I thought it was the best thing since the invention of a microwave, honestly.

“Don’t you want to?” I asked instead. “Austin is not Australia. You can get back on weekends.”

“You know that won’t happen. People tell themselves this, but it doesn’t happen – long-distance relationships rarely last, and you know it.”

Yes, I suspected as much. That’s why I had to restrain myself from fist-pumping.

“Wait, you want to stay because of me?” I looked at her, genuinely incredulous.

Evidently, she didn’t see anything outlandish about it, so she simply nodded. “Of course. Wouldn’t you?”

Well, hell. That was tricky. If she asked, whether I’d risk my life to save her, I’d say yes, easily. Turning down a good job opportunity wasn’t as simple as that.

You wouldn’t think that, but it’s a real high-wire act – trying to send your girlfriend away while simultaneously convincing her you want her to stay. Can give you a brain tumor.

“You’re needed there, Caro,” I said solemnly. “Now more than ever. The inauguration is in a week, after that all bets are off in terms of immigration. Trump has both houses now; before we know it, he’ll have the Supreme Court. Who knows what they’ll do?

“If he’s hell-bent on fulfilling his campaign promises, which is probable, and even if not all of them, which is impossible, he’ll have to do something about that damn wall. It’ll be chaos. It’s chaos already, as far as I know.

“If you want to help, baby,” I sighed dramatically, “you have to be in Texas.”

“You paint it like I’m some Mother Teresa of Calcutta,” she shook her head, but didn’t argue. 

In the end, we agreed that it’d be just for three months -she’d go there, see what’s what and then we’d talk again. Three months was far longer than I thought I’d have to wait for this situation to resolve itself, but it was just right to drive the final nail in this whole engagement nonsense.

Three months is more than enough to get me out of your system, trust me. With all my French blood and dry wit, I’m no Alain Delon, no Christopher Hitchens, so, even though none of this was discussed at the time, when I said goodbye to her in the airport, I knew that it was a home run for us.

That was Liza’s solution - out of sight, out of mind. Reasonable. Only there was another side to this coin – the same thing, time, which was supposed to erode Caro’s affection for me, could do the same with Armand.

I admit it bothered me. He said he loved me. Once. Almost off-handedly. But love needs to be realized, like a lake it needs constant supplies of fresh water, otherwise it collects and rots at the bottom of your heart, poisoning the life out of you.

I could wait. Could he?

In theory, sure. Three months aren’t thirty years - some people spend more time apart and it doesn’t affect them. But we weren’t those people, those people had something tangible between them that shortened the distance, and we had almost nothing – a couple of words, a couple of glances.

Could he wait? Would he?

And if he did, would it change anything? I mean, I wasn’t naïve about him, I could clearly imagine how I’d come to him and say that Caro and I were history and he’d sigh and start explaining that, you see, Timothée, fifty years in the closet matter and he couldn’t just – up! – and come out. And it’d all go back to the same tired bullshit, only without “son-in-law” thrown in the mix.

“Everything or nothing now, Armand,” I’d say to him, and he’d look away.

“Aren’t you asking too much?”

The possibility of this outcome, however painful, had to be accepted, so I gritted my teeth and did.

Meanwhile, Trump got inaugurated. Washington looked even gloomier than usual, including the weather. Barack attended, of course. Bush attended. No Aretha, no Beyoncé. Some Mormon choir and 3 Doors Down, because Elton John, with unusual for a Brit directness, advised the organizers to go fuck themselves. Quotes from Bane. Melania’s crestfallen face. Red hats in the crowd. Rain.

Want to know more, go to YouTube.

I didn’t find this whole affair particularly interesting, but the aftermath was certainly noteworthy. To tell you the truth, I was one of those who’d previously said, ok, let’s give this fucker a chance, who knows? Now he’s the President, he’ll have no choice but to act accordingly.

It’s surprising that I was so naïve. I mean I’d read his biography to prepare myself for what was to come, and yet, driven by some foolish hope, I decided that he’d change as soon as he was in office; which probably explains why Stanley didn’t let me write opinion pieces for a long time – a lot of opinions, most of them wrong.

And why would Trump change? Clinton didn’t, Bush didn’t, Barack didn’t. Becoming the leader of the free world transforms people no more than homosexuality or marriage, if you think about it. Got yourself a 9-to-5 guy – good for you; but if it’s an alcoholic, start mapping all the rehabs in the area, because that’s where you’ll end up waiting for him sooner or later anyway, in spite of all pre-nuptial promises.

Trump was the same old Donald on January 19 and he woke up unscathed by huge responsibility of his new position on January 21. I thought I was a cynical person - partly because I believed that you could be at twenty-five, when in reality you’re just smug – but I was frankly stunned by the spectacle of Sean Spicer trying to convince everyone that there were thousands more people in the crowd during the inauguration than the aerial photos showed.

It was a definition of non-story. No one cared, really. Before they went apeshit with this official denial of reality, no one cared. There was a couple of comments, but that was it. Yes, Barack had more. So what? But no, overnight we turned into the United States of schizophrenic Alice who looks in the mirror and is confused which side she is on.

You’ve won the Presidency, I wondered, you’ve proven almost everyone wrong, you’ll be in history books now, you’re fucking seventy, why are you wasting time on something kids in elementary school would scoff at?

But character is destiny, and he was Trump, and he couldn’t let it go. We’d spend almost two weeks arguing over something so benign and pointless, I’d start missing the days when Ted Cruz’s wife’s looks briefly entered political discourse.

Trump was petty to a truly astonishing degree. I knew it, still I was stunned - we married an alcoholic, but an empty bottle under the bed on the first day of honeymoon somehow was a revelation.

It shouldn’t have been. Donald had been Donald all his life. In the 70s, he bought what was then Hotel Commodore and transformed it into Grand Hyatt. His first experimental leap from housing projects in Queens to Manhattan prime real estate, and he managed to negotiate the sweetest deal for himself – buy it for 10 million, renovate it, then sell it back to the city for a dollar and get 40 years of guaranteed lease and tax abatements in return. It would bring Trump hundreds of millions over the years, while making the city budget hundreds of millions poorer, and would be one of the reasons why Amazon would be eventually turned down when dear Jeff tried to pull off something like this again – New York had enough of “public risk for private profit” model. 

And no, Trump’s wheeling and dealing is not the kicker. The kicker is that at some point during the renovation, the city asked him for a permit to build an escalator between Grand Central Terminal and the Hyatt, on the western side of the hotel. The matter had been previously discussed, and everyone thought Trump was in agreement, especially knowing that it wouldn’t cost him a dime. Trump refused, then agreed, then refused again. Presumably, because he didn’t want all those pesky commuters, with welfare written all over them, rising from the depths and marring the view of his posh building.

The city tried to reason. They tried to argue, they tried to make a deal. Finally, they sued. Trump countersued. The affair would drag on for years, he’d waste time and money in courts, start his famous feud with then-Mayor Ed Koch, turn every city bureaucracy that had helped him to get the building in the first place against him, forever spoil his reputation as a developer, cost him friends and future lucrative projects, and in the end – that damn escalator would be built anyway.

Why? Because he’s Trump. Because he can’t let it go.

There would be a lot of “escalators” in his life after that, including the one that would deliver him straight to the White House, but character is destiny – he’d sabotage himself so royally and so often that the guy, who, by some estimates, could’ve become as rich as Warren Buffett, is now afraid to show his tax returns and admit that he’s probably worth 150 million, if that.

So, be grateful that we didn’t elect him in the 80s, when he was at the top of his game, and only now, when the killer instinct gave way to Twitter obsession. Also, North Korea, if you’re listening, don’t fuck with him, please, he’ll nuke you without a second thought, if the mood strikes him, regardless of any international agreement or simple human compassion. All this about cutting off your nose to spite your face – Trump’ll cut off his balls to spite a janitor at Mar-a-Lago. Because he’s Trump, unpredictable in the worst and stupidest ways.

“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period!” Sean Spicer read quickly from his notes, and someone snorted off-camera.

I was stunned. Then I remembered about Grand Hyatt and snorted too. The new era was beginning and I was thinking that with the President like this every pundit could go take a four-year-long vacation – there was no need to analyze him. You don’t analyze a rudderless ship, you watch where the wind is blowing, and with Trump, it was coming from his Twitter, with a chance of Fox&Friends popping out of the clouds from time to time.

So I went there and read what the populace expected from our new leader. Ah, they didn’t want much - just get America back to the 50s, with its post-war industrialization and whiteness levels.

No, not all his supporters are racists, far from it. My parents aren’t, for example. But you can’t deny that he holds some allure for the people who are. Which brings us back to the wall with Mexico, which brings us back to Caro.

It was the end of January, and I was worried. We, of course, had agreed that we’d talk every day and it, of course, didn’t last longer than a week. She told me she was swamped with work. She’d often worked long hours in New York too, but Austin was a different matter – where before she had dozens of clients, now she had hundreds. The number of illegal crossings spiked around the election time and started to drop immediately after – those who wanted to get in, knew they had to hurry; those who missed their chance, decided to wait and see what the new administration would do. No one expected Trump to go and stand on the Bridge of the Americas and personally welcome every Salvadoran crossing the Rio Grande - Obama didn’t, after all; but when people said it’d get worse, no one really thought about kids in cages, either. What everyone was sure of was that there would be some show of force, i.e. raids, deportations, harassment.

The immigration courts are hellish: not enough judges, not enough lawyers, literally millions of cases going back to the 90s. And that January all those who wanted to have at least a semblance of protection against ICE rushed to organizations like the one Caro was working for. So it’s no wonder that she didn’t really have time to talk to me, when she was falling asleep at her desk every other day.

It suited me. Distance in relationship isn’t measured in miles or kilometers, but in new friends you make that your partner doesn’t, in funny episodes that lose their sharpness because you have to explain everything now – “And then Craig said…” “Who is Craig?” “Oh, right…”; in daily disappointments that you had time to discuss over dinner, but now seem too trivial to bring up, even though they bother you; in the weekends that you spend apart; in that small hesitation before you dial her number, wondering if it’s a good time, she might be working; in the Fridays spent with your coworkers in the bar across the street; in the Mondays when, late for work, she doesn’t trip over your sneakers, forgotten in the doorway; in those moments in front of a fridge in supermarket, when you buy a bucket of ice-cream and feel guilty relief that there won’t be another argument about the flavor.

Slowly but surely your lives enter two separate lanes, side by side, but without a chance of crossing. When she takes a turn, she’ll use an overpass. When your light is green, hers has just changed to red. And by the time one of you may want to get it all back, you turn sharply and crash into a concrete barrier, built by days and nights apart, to separate your now parallel lives.

It suited me. I didn’t think anyone would crash in our case, we’d just meet after three months, look at each other and laugh – what a silly idea it was, you and me, so wonderful once, but so silly.

Goodbye, Caroline.

Goodbye, Timmy.

What a summer we had!

Indeed.

You deserve more.

You too…

And then in February Caro told me that she’d gone to Juárez.

“Juárez?” I sat up. “What were you doing in Juárez? You were supposed to be in Austin.”

“I wanted to see it for myself,” she sighed. “Tim, you can’t bel…”

“What did you want to see?” I interrupted. “Caro, you’re not the Red fucking Cross, you aren’t even a lawyer! What the hell?”

“Don’t be such a drama queen,” she brushed me off.

Drama queen?

I have nothing against Mexico. I love Mexico. But, as can be said about a lot of things, you can’t love Mexico with your eyes closed.

Mexico is Cabo San Lucas, Tulum, Cancún, white sand, azure water, Cinco de Mayo, mezcal, soap operas, tomales and cenotes; but it’s also Mazatlán, Culiacán, Tijuana and the horror truly unimaginable - Los Zetas; 20,000 homicides a year and cut off heads on door stoops. It could be another Canada, but stuck between the US and tons of Colombian cocaine and containers of Chinese fentanyl, it’s not. 

And Juárez… Once declared the murder capital of the world, when Sinaloa and the local cartel went to war with each other over this drug plaza and turned it into a meat grinder, Juárez is a bloody ghost peppered with bullet holes.

Think _Sicario_, think Emily Blunt in a bulletproof Humvee, armed to the teeth. Think Don Winslow realizing that “what if there were no God?” is interesting, but “what if there were no Satan?” is even more so. If there were no Satan, it would be chaos in hell…

Chaos in hell, that’s Juárez only a few years ago. 

“What _the fuck_ were you doing in Juárez?” I cried.

“I think I’ll go to a law school,” she replied instead.

“Law school? Fine! Great! Get back to New York, go to Columbia. Or Harvard, try Harvard again.”

“No, not now,” she chuckled.

“Don’t set foot out of Austin then. Can you promise me that, at least?”

She didn’t reply.

“Caro…”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry, please.”

“Does your dad know?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “And don’t go snitching, ok?”

I promised. As soon as she hung up, I called Liza. “Do you know what she did?” I asked, not wasting time on pointless how-do-you-do.

“Yes,” she said calmly. “I’m going to Austin next week.”

“To keep an eye on her?”

“To prepare my exhibition there.”

I nodded. “Good… I just don’t understand… I mean, sure, she has some humanitarian urges, but Juárez? Why? If it were someone else, I’d say she was chasing some instagrammable moment, but that’s not like Caro…”

“Well, that’s what being Chris Hammer’s granddaughter does to you,” Liza sighed. “Guilt of being less than. They are all obsessed with him, really. Even his late wife, who surely glimpsed behind the curtain, even she couldn’t escape it.”

“No,” I shook my head. “I think she’s imitating you.”

“Me?” Liza laughed. “Trust me, she knows better. She may admire certain things, but she knows better. No, that’s grandpa’s larger-than-life figure you’re up against. In both cases.”

We were strange friends, me and Liza. I didn’t even know if we were friends in the true sense of the word, but I trusted her.

“I’m scared that something will happen to her,” I confessed.

“Would throw your whole plan, right?”

That made me angry. “Wasn’t _my_ fucking idea to send her to Texas!”

“No one sent her anywhere,” Liza replied. “She’s old enough to take responsibility for her own decisions.”

“You’re all fucked-up,” I sighed. “This whole family. The Hammers. You too,” I added spitefully.

“If we’re so bad, why are you so eager to join?” she snorted.

I didn’t have a good answer to that. “You need to tell Armand, please. He’ll…”

“She’ll tell him herself, don’t worry,” she interrupted. “She loves driving him crazy.”

I frowned.

“You have so much to learn, young Padawan,” Liza chuckled. “Naiveté is dangerous nowadays. Adios.”

Oh, these people… these people drove me insane, I swear. As soon as I thought I understood anything about their family dynamics, they’d throw me another curveball.

The news about Caro’s adventures traveled fast, though. A week later, when we had beers with the guys from the _Post_, one of them casually said that he admired what my girlfriend was doing. #Resistance, and all that. I didn’t even know he was following her Insta, but he did apparently.

Then I ran into one of Caro’s girlfriends in the street and she congratulated me again. She wouldn’t dream about leaving Manhattan herself, but she deeply respected “this stuff.”

“She could be on her way to making six figures a month and getting a partnership by thirty, but she chooses to do this. It’s very cool.”

I nodded. True, so true.

So it was part worry and guilt – if something happened to Caro, I’d never forgive myself; part irritation, because suddenly I turned into this asshole who was about to dump Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I was seriously thinking about going to Austin and begging Caro to come back, and I suspect I would’ve eventually, but out of the blue Stanley called me to his office and said he was giving the big piece on Bernie Sanders to me and Sandra, another of our political reporters.

“You’re going to Vermont, Chalamet,” he said pleasantly. “If you want to.”

I wanted to. I was desperate to. I’d been waiting for an assignment like this since they moved me to Politics section and I said as much.

“Alright,” he nodded. “Sandra will cover his Senate gig, and you’ll do the local stuff, plus some biographical details. But I don’t need a puff piece, ok?” he looked at me severely. “It’s not _Pravda_ yet, we’re still _Washington Post_.”

And dear Jeff _still_ wasn’t sure how he felt about Bernie and his “eat the rich” program. On the one hand, it’ll probably do something about our financial inequality problem, levels of which were similar to those in the feudal Europe; on the other, how can you afford a rocket in this country if you pay your taxes? You tell me, hm?

But with Trump’s approval ratings, it looked more and more likely that Bernie would run in 2020, and, with Hillary out of the way, who knows, he might even win, so we had to write about him. Jeff couldn’t argue with it.

Still, the “socialism” thing grated on everyone’s nerves. Hitler was a socialist, too, people would tell you. Look how that turned out. And the Soviet Union, and China, and North Korea… You want us to become a North Korea?

So, no, if you had to write about Bernie, you had to present him as some sort of a well-meaning idiot, a part of that power that eternally wills to do good, but fucks it up on delivery.

I got it. What was expected from me was to tell our readers that we loved Bernie, but he better stayed in Vermont and wrote another book. You didn’t have to sell your soul and tell lies, you could write whatever you wanted, but it’s not the writers who send it to print, it’s the editorial board. In other words, have an opinion – start a blog.

It didn’t really bother me. If I could write about cricket and Gwyneth, I could write about Bernie, too. Few of his supporters read the _Post_ anyway. So I packed my bag and flew to Vermont, while keeping one eye on Caro’s Instagram, ready to give her hell if she felt like crossing the border again.

Meanwhile my mom kept calling. Our conversations became shorter and less embarrassing, but her name on the screen still made me hear Tony Soprano: “Hey, Mikey, how’s the boy?”

“You’re bisexual,” she informed me, when I landed in Burlington.

“Whatever lets you sleep at night,” I nodded.

“How is… everything?”

“Still the same,” I replied tiredly.

She hesitated. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, Timmy.”

It wasn’t the first time she said it, or some variation of it; and you didn’t have to be a cryptologist to figure this shit out – the bird in my hand was Caro, no matter that she was five states away; and those in the bush, that was my uncertain homosexual prospects, which my mom started to believe was something akin to passing fancy.

“Caroline is an exceptional girl,” she continued.

“Starlight Inn,” I told the driver, and back to Mom. “Yes, she is, but I want to be one of those two in the bush.”

I was seriously getting tired of it – my mom, too, joined this “let’s worship Caro” club; and the more I heard it, the more I thought of Brad Pitt in an episode of _Between Two Ferns_: “Is it hard for you to maintain your suntan? Because you live in your wife’s shadow…”

I don’t know about great men - not many of those in my family - but try to live behind a great woman: she’s saving the world and you’re profiling Bernie Sanders. If Trump hadn’t declared my brethren “enemy of the people” recently, I don’t know what would’ve become of my self-esteem - if you’re not oppressed in any way, you might as well leave Twitter. Though, in reality, the only thing that weighed on me those days was Caro’s sudden popularity and my general uselessness.

“Enough,” I told Mom, “or I’ll call her right now and break up with her over the phone. Don’t tempt me.”

“But this boy…”

“Forget about the boy,” I groaned. “I’m working. I’ll call you later. Bye.”

I’d spend a week in Vermont, mostly interviewing Bernie’s colleagues, his neighbors, his friends, people who knew him when he was a carpenter, then a writer, then a mayor, and watching his early documentaries. My last day there the Sanderses invited me for dinner at their house, which I mention only because it’s quite rare these days – when a simple “yeeeeha” can end your career, politicians are understandably wary of the press.

Bernie had recently become a millionaire thanks to his book, so I couldn’t complain about the table. I even postponed asking about the bank fraud investigation opened against his wife Jane, until the dessert was served and apple pie sweetened the conversation some.

All in all, Bernie is a very nice guy, sincere, direct, thoughtful. If America craved authenticity so much, I was thinking, here was your authenticity. Trump has it too, I can’t argue with that, but his is of the kind you wouldn’t want in your neighbor down the street, let alone president.

And, yeah, I know what usually happens in stories like this at this point – our hero meets a great man and that man gives him some cryptic advice on how to straighten his love life and the whole of humanity. Well, Bernie abstained. He didn’t seem particularly interested in my amorous vicissitudes, and I didn’t burden him with it – there was enough on his plate as it was. He did recommend me to read about Eugene Debs, though, and I said I would, and I didn’t - there was more than enough on my plate, too.

By the time I was back in New York, Michael Flynn had been fired and what would become the Russia investigation into the Trump campaign had started gaining steam. Trump cried that he knew nothing about nothing. But about nothing! Never met Putin. Or maybe once. Or maybe never. Or they were in the same building at the same time. Or maybe not.

What Ukraine? Where is Ukraine? Never heard of it either.

It’s all Obama. Cover-up. It’s a coup.

Democrats are crazy!

Ivanka is a great person!

Christians are being slaughtered in this country! Sad.

New York Times is failing!

Iran, tariffs, China, Ivanka, Obama, Hillary, Muslim ban, this “so-called judge,” Rush Limbaugh, Justin Trudeau, Neil Gorsuch…

_Enjoy the #SuperBowl and then we continue: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!_

FAKE NEWS!!!

It seemed after his first 100 days in office, the rest of the country would be more exhausted than Donald himself. Trump fatigue settled in at 4 a.m., when he fired his first tweet, and didn’t let up until midnight - take Michael Scott, mix him with Kelly Kapoor and you’d get our new president.

They better not retrieve Biden from his winter storage for 2020, I thought, because this maniac will pulverize him onstage.

I myself felt like I needed a vacation from these United States of Us. Instead I got March and a fight with Caro over the phone. _You can’t change the world from your desk, Tim. _So we were changing the world now, no less. Thank you, I’m out.

“Stay in Texas,” I warned her half-heartedly.

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

User CarolineHammer has left the chat.

“Give me a raise, Stanley. I’m rent-burdened,” I asked again.

“I’m life-burdened, Chalamet,” he grunted. “Thank your lucky stars you’re not fired yet.”

I lost a glove in the subway, thought about Armand and called him. He didn’t pick up and didn’t call me back.

Mom did.

“I accept you as you are, but you shouldn’t break off the engagement. What if this boy… what if he doesn’t feel the same, Timmy?”

I banged my head against the wall, snow fell and melted immediately, on my nightstand there were tickets to Austin for Caro’s birthday.

Yes, I was going to break up with Mother Teresa on her birthday. No, I didn’t give a fuck anymore.

I’d bought those tickets in advance, I knew what was happening by then – first, she promised to fly back to New York and celebrate it here, then she stopped mentioning it, then, when I asked, it turned out her workload increased so much, she couldn’t imagine spending her days off in airports.

_Maybe you’ll come here? But it’s ok, if you don’t…_

No, it wasn’t ok. If I didn’t, we’d drag this moribund engagement with us into the summer. That wasn’t an option. I needed to get to Armand, before time and distance did their treacherous work there, too. I knew he was still alive, only because there was no announcement on Caro’s Insta, for god’s sake. It wasn’t acceptable.

So I got the tickets and couldn’t wait for March 17 to come, which conveniently fell on Friday that year. Listening to Caro, you wouldn’t think she was dying to see me, which only strengthened my suspicions that someone else was in the picture by then – great, then there wouldn’t be the need to say too much.

About “someone else” I turned out to be right. There was someone, alright. Da’mon Kalanga, law degree from Stanford, Master of Arts in government from Harvard, community organizer and legal advisor to Beto O’Rourke, who dabbled in poetry and fine cuisine in his free time, managed to write and publish a book on how to become successful in America while black, and for whom 2024 wasn’t a date, but a destination, and it read “White House,” or maybe, just maybe “Senate.” What else? Danny Glover’s smile and a Prius. Prius because Tesla was too flashy, not because he couldn’t afford it, I suppose.

All in all, a 29-year-old being so accomplished, you could only scratch your jaw and mumble, “Yeah, and I’m from Michigan.”

Dame hated my guts on sight, it must be said. And his megawatt smile faded even more when the word “fiancé” was uttered.

“Dame as in Dame Helen Mirren?” I smirked.

Caro gave me a sour look, he smiled, dangerously. I ignored him and instead glanced at Caro’s fingers – several rings were present, none of which I put there. We were traveling fast.

I was briefly introduced to some of the people Caro worked with and then we had to decide where to celebrate. I didn’t know the city, so I simply shrugged. Dame, of course, was beside himself that he hadn’t been told it was Caro’s birthday. My fiancée demurely lowered her eyes and blushed. These two were so obvious, it was hard not to snort noisily.

Anyway, naturally, he had a friend who was a chef in one of the trendy places, so we were summarily loaded into that Prius and delivered there, listening to some symphony in D minor or major on the way, because that fucker knew his classics, too.

We ended up in an Ethiopian restaurant, where you could eat using traditional utensils, but you would only if you were me; otherwise it was strips of thin bread that served you as everything – from a plate to a napkin. Dame knew “just a little” of French and “just a bit” of Portuguese, but just enough to toast my flustered fiancée in both. I smiled benevolently and kissed her, and Dame’s face indicated that he was quite proficient in English, too; in fact I shudder to imagine what he called me at the moment in his head.

Other people at the table reacted to me with polite curiosity, but nothing more. They were all probably thinking that those two were a done deal, but no one found the guts to ask me outright what the hell I was doing there.

“I read the _Post_ regularly,” Dame smiled. “Don’t think I saw your name,” he said, infusing his words with as much false regret as he was capable of.

“You will,” I winked and stole some sauce from Caro’s plate.

He nodded curtly.

It was ridiculous. I knew it was ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was everything I prayed for – new guy, by all accounts a great guy, possible love, potentially painless break-up; but rather than feeling grateful and thanking fate for this gift, I was jealous. Irrationally and murderously jealous.

If I was a weaker man, I would’ve married Caro on the spot, instead of dumping her. I suspect many people do so, motivated by feelings as foolish as mine at the time. We’d grind on, have a couple of kids, poison our days and theirs, and then divorce a decade later, hating each other’s guts for wasting what we’d call the best years of our lives on this pointless affair.

Part of my brain understood all this, and yet… she was mine, damn it! Mine! I still had some of my stuff in her New York apartment, she still had some of hers in mine. We had this summer, this beautiful, magical summer that suddenly acquired fairy-taleish proportions in my mind. I knew her birthmarks, her quirks, her Monday moods, her Saturday laughter. I remembered how the soles of her feet smelled, how her shoulder blade flexed when she unclasped her bra, my combs still had her hairs on them, my sweats still had that crease at the knee because she rolled them up all the time.

I’d been waiting for this moment for months, and yet, when it arrived, I realized that I was losing something palpable – a person that shared my life for a long time was leaving it and she’d take away with her everything we had and could have had together.

Yes, if I’d let myself get carried away by this nostalgia mixed with possessiveness, who knows, maybe I would’ve convinced her that night to go back to New York and maybe she, overwhelmed by this sadness too, would have said yes. I didn’t, but as they say, I was _this_ close…

I was sitting there and thought of Estelle. Her dislike, her coldness, her fear, I understood them better now – a new face appears and you read “It’s over,” written on it, you’re losing, you know that you’re losing, with every minute, every breath, every glance that you intercept. It’s slipping through your fingers, your love, suddenly ungraspable as water, and no matter what you do, you can’t really stop it, can only fight for delays, only beg for seconds, forgoing your pride and all your “I would never” promises. 

The moment you lose it, you want it as you’ve never done before. You bargain with conscience, you invent excuses, you resurrect the feelings long dead by now and present them as proof that this person, this person shouldn’t go away, they should stay, there’s a chance… We’ll talk it over, we’ll negotiate… I forgive you, for everything… It doesn’t matter… Just stay, stay, stay… I don’t want to lose you…

Nonsense, you just don’t want to lose.

Whatever it is, if someone else wants it, then it’s probably worth fighting for. Love is strong, greed is stronger – for an interminable second you convince yourself that it’s love, when it’s greed you’re protecting.

The only _ars amatoria_ that exists is to leave the show five seconds before the final credits start. Marriage or kids won’t save you from the end, only you can do it.

Slap yourself – it’s over. You knew it for a long time. Icy water to the face – it’s better like this, it’s only phantom pain from an already amputated limb that you’re feeling.

Goodbye, Caroline.

Remember the summer. Remember the rain. Remember the fireworks.

I’ll miss you. But missing you is better than resenting you.

Goodbye…

“Do we have anything to drink?” I asked when we got back to her apartment.

“Why?” she looked at me.

I shrugged, smiled. “You know why.”

She started searching for something in her bag, avoided my eyes. “I think you misread this situation, Tim. I won’t deny that there is… attraction, but… these things happen. We often work together, spend a lot of time…” she finally looked up. “This is not…”

“You aren’t going back to New York,” I said gently.

“Well, maybe not now… Couple months, and…”

“…and we’ll have this conversation again. Let’s not,” I shook my head. “Let’s not.”

She put down her bag and ran her hands through her hair. It was a small apartment – one bedroom and a small kitchen. Shadows from the fan on the ceiling cut through those from the blinders. She’d never been a neat person and Texas didn’t change that – there was a heap of laundry on the couch and a couple of wine glasses on the coffee table. They caught my eye.

“I’m not cheating on you,” she said.

“Neither am I.”

We stood in silence, then she shrugged.

“There’s whiskey.”

“Good,” I started for the kitchen and she stopped me.

“Wait, I have something better.”

She disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a pack of cigarettes. A moment later there was a joint in her hand.

“Whoa…” I chuckled. “Won’t we get, like, a life sentence for it here?”

“Misdemeanor, 180 days, but not mandatory,” she winked.

“Do we have to thank you know who for this?” I raised a brow.

“No,” she rolled her eyes. “One of my clients. I was told it’s something special.”

“I don’t really…”

“I don’t want to get maudlin,” she bit her lip.

I didn’t either, so we killed the lights, opened the windows and switched the ceiling fan to a faster speed.

My history with weed up to that point had been short and blurry. I tried it exactly twice, both times in college. My dad didn’t know about it, but his sheriff’s intuition worked just fine, especially when his progeny was involved, so he dutifully scared the bejesus out of me with “gateway,” and “heroin,” and “life down the drain.” But, I guess, I didn’t want a dull break-up, so we sat on the couch and lit it up.

For the first half an hour, it was Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and those Quaaludes.

“You feeling anything?”

“Nah…”

“Me neither…”

Then that something special from across the border shyly opened the curtains and said hi.

I remember, in as much as I remember that night, that we were rolling on the floor and giggling. Caro lost her blouse in the process, I lost my shirt. I think we made out, for old times’ sake, I can’t be certain.

There was whiskey too, because there were those two glasses on the coffee table. I drank it, I’m pretty sure, because it sprayed out of my nose, when I snorted, and got on a cup of Caro’s white bra. 

Why we were rolling on the floor, I can’t say. Why we were dancing, I can – we were singing _Sway_, our own cover, probably so loud we could wake up Dean Martin from his eternal slumber.

No, we didn’t know the words. Oh, yeah, we swayed… mostly into the walls and furniture.

By about three in the morning, we were simply drunk, sad and worst of all coherent. So we fought it with what was left of Dewar’s.

“I’m gay,” I smiled.

Caro laughed. “How… gay?”

“80%, more or less. 20% bisexual, 80% gay,” I used my fingers to explain and realized I had trouble counting them.

“To gays!” she cried.

“To gays!” I joined her. 

We sighed in unison.

“I’m in love, too,” I nodded.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… with a dude.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah…”

She rubbed her face and squinted at me. “Mom’s exhibition opens tomorrow.”

“Oh, Jesus… What time?”

We both looked at the clock.

“In five hours, I think,” she sniffed.

“Oh, Jesus…”

“You were invited.”

“Oh, Jesus…”

“We need to sleep…”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah…”

Somehow we swayed into the bedroom, plummeted on the bed and passed out - until morning, it was the best break-up of my life. No one set the alarm, of course, so it was Liza’s call that woke us up around noon.

“We’re in traffic,” Caro mumbled. “Coming.”

She kicked me out of bed and we tried to make ourselves look as if we weren’t suffering from the worst hangover imaginable. During coffee, we remembered that we’d broken up.

“Don’t tell Mom,” Caro warned. “I’ll tell her myself.”

“Fine,” I nodded.

In the taxi on the way there, something else resurfaced.

“You’re gay?” Caro turned to me.

I shrugged and found out my shoulder hurt for some mysterious reason. “Sort of…”

“Ok,” she swallowed. “Ok. Is there someone…”

“There is.”

“Ok,” she said again. “Ok. Don’t tell…”

“I won’t.”

I don’t know how many hangovers Liza suffered in her life, but she could spot one without any trouble.

“If anyone throws up here,” she told Caro, “you’re up for adoption.”

“We’re fine,” Caro assured her. “Look at us.”

Which only tells you how foggy her mind really was, because looking at us was the last thing you’d want to do at that exhibition.

It took place in a spacious art center whose glass roof didn’t spare you an ounce of Texas sun. My eyes started hurting as soon as I glanced around – blindingly white walls with a violently bright painting here and there weren’t what you’d call a cure. I moaned.

“Let’s mingle,” Caro grabbed my hand and led us into the first direction that didn’t demand climbing the stairs that she saw. I wouldn’t say that we mingled, really, there weren’t many people there. It was Saturday afternoon and Austin is a vibrant city – for some, after-party was still not over. But we did try to look awe-struck; though, it was mostly color-struck for both of us, and pretty soon my ex-fiancée and I admitted that we preferred gentle blues to screaming reds in painting.

And fuck, Liza was prolific. There were four rooms in all filled with her stuff. We survived the two of them as a joint front, but the sight of the third one – orange! orange! orange! - sent Caro to the bathroom and me straight to the next visible opening.

There it was better – beige and gray and black. I could stomach it.

One swift round, don’t touch the walls, don’t fall on people, and you’re out of this hell, Timmy, I told myself. Walk steadily, say something nice afterwards and crawl to the airport. No, no, don’t crawl here, later. That’s my boy.

In New York, you’ll dry out, put on your best – and to Armand! To the rest of your life. Without drugs and alcohol. Without food, either. No, no food. A lot of water, though, a looot of water… Maybe a dry biscuit from time to time, but mostly water…

At first, I got terrified. I didn’t know what was in that weed, but it must have been something really wild, if it produced hallucinations. I blinked several times, passed my hand in front of my eyes to make it disappear, but it didn’t – the thing was still there. Wore beige sweater and slacks and looked like Armand, only thinner and with a beard.

I had to investigate. If it was what I thought it was – a mirage – I’d commit to a loony bin voluntarily. If it wasn’t – oh, Jesus…

I came up to him. He was standing in front of a big beige-black painting with something deeply artistic depicted on it, that I could’ve deciphered last night, but that escaped me sober.

He turned his head. It seemed he recognized me, because he frowned. To be completely sure what was going on, I pinched his sweater and smelled it. I would’ve licked it too, but he didn’t let me.

“What happened to you?” he sighed, clasped my wrist and drew it away from his chest.

“Oh, Armand…” I smiled. “How absolutely wonderful…”

“Can you stand?” he frowned.

“Yes,” I nodded. “I just don’t want to.”

“Ok,” he smiled.

“Oh, Armand…”

“What happened?” he kept smiling.

“I broke up with Caro,” I smiled too, then looked at his suddenly prominent cheekbones. “What happened _to you_?”

He glanced sideways and shrugged. “I broke up with Estelle.”

“Oh…” I sighed contentedly. “Wait, and you’re like this because of her?”

“No,” he shook his head slowly, “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, Armand…” I buried my head in his sweater. “How absolutely wonder…”

“Dad?” we heard, and his beautiful chest with its soft sweater swiftly disappeared. I turned and looked at Caro.

“I didn’t know you were coming…” she mumbled, and our eyes met.

I don’t know what she saw. Well, no, I know what she saw, she saw me nuzzling her father, and as hungover as she was, she was still a paralegal, and they usually arrive from point A to point B with fewer delays than the rest of us.

“Oh my God…” her mouth opened and stayed that way.

“What?” Armand asked.

Shut up, I thought, shut up. We can still…

“Caro,” I cleared my throat. “Don…”

There was a hunter in me, after all. All dad’s lessons weren’t in vain. I didn’t see the glass of tomato juice in her hand, but I discerned it flying in my direction and even ducked in time. It shattered against the frame and covered the wall and part of the painting in thick red vegetable love.

The alarm started blaring.

“Caro…” my head was exploding from this heinous noise. “Car…”

“My father, Tim?” she cried. “My fucking father???”

“Cara…” that was from Armand.

He shouldn’t have bothered – she didn’t even look at him.

“I will fucking kill you!” that was to me.

“Caro…”

People were leaving, Liza was coming. She glanced at the painting first, than at me. “No other way, was there?”

“I didn’t do anything!” I protested.

“Mom, you don’t know what’s going on here!” Caro grabbed her hand. “It’s… It’s…”

Liza looked at me, then at Armand, then at the juice dripping on the floor, and it seemed she knew exactly what was going on.

“Hey! Stop filming!” I cried, seeing that someone got out their phone and was gleefully waiting for another viral moment of stupidity to capture.

“Celeste,” Liza turned to the woman that came with her. “Please, deal with the alarm, and do something about…” she nodded towards the visitors that were still in the room. “I’ll explain later, I promise. Please, dear…”

Celeste whispered something in her ear, and Liza sighed and nodded. Next, her eyes found Armand, “You’re paying for this wall.”

“Paying for the wall?” he blinked. “It can be washed!”

“Then you’ll wash it,” she replied sweetly. “And the painting, too. You’re buying it anyway.”

“The juice wasn’t addressed to me,” he replied primly.

Liza turned to me.

“Oh, no, no, no!” I started waving my hands. “No! You won’t pin it on me! I’ve been broke since August!”

“Mom, stop it!” Caro sounded exasperated. “It’s not about the juice. It’s… God, I don’t even know what it is…” she shook her head.

The alarm finally shut up. Celeste managed to clear the room and, on her way out, put a sign at the entrance, probably saying that this part of the exhibition was temporarily closed.

“Well, let’s find out what it is,” Liza folded her arms. “Who wants to start?” she looked at us all in turn.

“What do you want to talk about?” Caro asked tiredly. “There’s nothing to talk about. It’s a… It’s a fucking travesty!”

I narrowed my eyes. “We broke up _yesterday_!”

“So what?”

“You were ok with it!”

“And I’m still ok _with that_,” she shot back. “I’m not ok _with this_!” she waved between me and Armand.

“What’s wrong _with this_?”

“My father, Tim?” she looked at me incredulously. “He is my father!”

“I know.”

“That’s it? You know?”

“What the hell happened?” Liza demanded.

“Nothing happened, I swear!” I said immediately.

“Nothing?” Caro laughed. “Tim is in love with Dad!”

There was silence.

Liza glanced at her ex. “The floor is yours.”

“No, it’s not his fault,” Caro shook her head. “You shouldn’t blame him. He’d never imagine anything like that. Who _could_ imagine it?”

“A lot of people, actually,” came the quiet reply. “It’s a known trope.”

Caro stared at her father. “Have you even heard what I said?”

I was interested in that, too. I expected a headless-chicken behavior from him, instead he reacted as if it was no more serious than a case of spilled juice.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I knew, Cara.”

“What did you know? How could you know?” she didn’t understand. “How _would_ you know?”

“Because it’s mutual,” he said quietly, and my jaw dropped.

“Mutual what?” she snorted. “You’re in love with him, too?”

Armand kept looking at her and didn’t say anything.

“No, you are not,” Caro shook her head. “You are not!”

“I am.”

“But you’re my father!”

He closed his eyes, and the shadows of his face became sharper. “And your father can fall in love with a man,” he said. “Even the one half his age.”

“But you can’t do this!” she spluttered. “Parents don’t do this to their children! You simply can’t!”

“I probably didn’t do even the half of what you’re imagining right now,” he replied tiredly.

“I imagine that you’ve been lying to me my whole life,” she cried. “Haven’t you? Haven’t you?”

I believe it was his calmness that perplexed her the most. It surprised me too, honestly. We’re living in a time when not a day goes by without someone apologizing for something, some of it well deserved, most of it bullshit. We got used to the fact that when someone calls you out, your immediate response is to start tearing off your hair and crying how deeply sorry you are, that all the fires of hell aren’t enough to cleanse you of this unconscionable thing you did. This hysterical self-flagellation became so familiar, we began judging the apology with more scrutiny than the original offence.

And Armand… Armand, I guess, belongs to the Hitchens’s school of thought: “If someone tells me they're offended, I'm still waiting to hear their point.”

“It’s not about you, Cara. It’s about me.”

“Not about me? It’s my life!”

“No, not really,” he shook his head. “It might upset you for a time, you may be disgusted for a time, but then… One day you’ll probably joke about it, and I don’t know if I ever will, that’s the difference.”

“I may not want to see you ever again, I may hate you for the…”

“It’s your choice,” he interrupted.

“My _choice_?”

“Yes. As it was when you decided to live with your mom, and when you cried that you didn’t need ‘my Harvard,’ and when you finally said that I failed you as a father.”

“I never said…”

“You did,” he smiled sadly. “You don’t remember? You were sixteen, you’d just returned to New York and were furious that I’d let you go in the first place. But that was your choice, Cara. Hating me will be too.”

“You’re blaming me for what I did as a child?” she looked at him incredulously.

“No,” he shook his head, “but trying the same thing and expecting different results is a definition of insanity – I did what you asked, every time, and you still resented me afterwards. If you do this now, at least I’ll deserve it.

“Cara, it’s not easy. If you think this is easy for me, you’re very much mistaken. I’d prefer going to my grave without you looking at me like you are doing now, and I’ve been on the run from this look for longer than you’ve been alive, but… He is right. He is right – then what?

“I don’t have time. You don’t understand it, because you’re simply too young. You have the luxury to fall for unsuitable people and brush it off, to lose really important ones and move on like nothing happened. Because the future is still endless, because when you go to your doctor and he says, ‘Well, at your age…’ he is still winking, not shrugging apologetically.

“I don’t have time anymore. I gave you the most of it, the best of it, and I don’t regret it for a second… I’d give you the rest in a heartbeat… but do you really need it? And if you don’t – then what? I simply don’t have much ‘then’ left.

“It’s Pessoa, Cara: ‘I bear the wounds of all the battles I avoided.’ And I came to realize that if I don’t fight this one, it just might kill me.” 

I doubt she heard him at all. She had that glassy look of people blinded by their private grief or disappointment, who keep their eyes closed because they suspect that opening them will hurt them even more.

“You lied to me,” she repeated.

“Yes. And you’ve never lied in your life?”

“Not for years,” she shook her head, “not about who I am.”

“I’m still your father.”

Caro chuckled mirthlessly and looked between her parents. “So what was it? Shotgun wedding? Marriage of convenience? Searching for a beard dot com? Have you two ever even loved each other?”

“Enough to have you,” Liza replied.

“An annoying surplus, right?”

“What are you…” Armand began, but Liza stopped him.

“It’s really simple, Caroline. If we didn’t want you, you wouldn’t be here.” 

“Oh, how nice,” Caro scoffed. “Exactly what I’ve always wanted to hear.”

“Certainly better than what _I_ heard in my time,” Liza said calmly.

“And you think you’re an improvement?” Caro asked mockingly. “Haven’t exactly exerted yourself since I was born…”

“Enough!” Armand said sharply. “You won’t talk like that to your mother. I won’t allow it, Caroline. You have something to tell me – say it, but leave your mother out of it - she gave you all that she had for as long as she could; and you may not see it as an achievement, but wait until you have a family yourself. Easy to judge a drowning man from shore.

“You think anyone has it perfect? You think _I_ had? Your grandpa could be a real…” he took a deep breath, “a real bastard sometimes.

“You ask if we ever loved each other. Well, at least we divorced before we started hating, which few couples manage to do and for which you have mostly your mother to thank. So why don’t you?”

“Is that really what you all are expecting from me?” Caro looked around. “That I, what, fucking applaud? My parents are a sham, my father is a liar, my mother doesn’t give a damn about me and my fiancé is one sick puppy. Should we maybe all hug?”

“No, let’s murder each other,” I rolled my eyes.

“Shut up!” she pounced. “You shouldn’t even be here!”

I decided that Armand had enough beating for the day, he didn’t look well anyway, and considering that I wanted to spend the rest of his life with him, I had an interest in prolonging it, so I offered my chest for some familial stabbing for a change.

“Why shouldn’t I be here? No, no, wait. Like it or not, but we’re going to be a family now. Yes, we are,” I nodded, because my ex-fiancée’s eyes filled with horror at the prospect of having me as a relative.

“Look, you haven’t lived in a small town. I have. For twenty fucking years. I’ve seen this shit a lot. We have two brothers there, live on parallel streets. They didn’t talk to each other for six years. You know why? Because one worked in construction and another needed sand for his pavement. Well, the first one, he couldn’t get it for him with a discount. That’s how it started.

“There was also a case where an old tree fell into a neighboring backyard and smashed the currant bushes growing there - another years-long pointless feud.

“And you know what it teaches you? When you can’t get away from each other, you better get along. And if we didn’t, we would’ve murdered one another there long ago.”

I thought it made sense. She, apparently, didn’t.

“Aha,” Caro nodded. “So, you’re the tree, right?”

“What tree?”

“The one that fell,” she scowled. “Because I’m certainly feeling like the bushes right now.”

“You don’t need to feel like the bushes! Your parents love you.”

“My parents love many people, it turns out,” she replied drily. “Including you.”

“Ok, so what’s bugging you? The age difference? Because it can’t be our broken engagement, come on!”

“He is my father!”

“And he’ll always be your father!”

“And what will _you_ be?”

“Your stepfather, I guess,” I shrugged. “Technically.”

They all looked at me with various levels of astonishment on their faces.

“This is bloody priceless…” Caro muttered.

“Let’s not get silly,” Armand sighed. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time…”

“You would know,” Caro shot him a look.

“What’s the question, Cara? Did I sleep with your fiancé?”

“No!”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“Ok, now I _am_ going to throw up…”

“Relax,” I patted her shoulder. “He meant no, he didn’t.”

“Get your hands off me!”

“Let’s vote,” Liza said suddenly.

“On what?” Caro looked at her incredulously. “If he did or he didn’t?”

“On whether we’ll take time, think about it and talk again later, when th…”

“I don’t need to vote,” Caro interrupted. “I don’t see what else is there to say. Talk about what? What you really want is… I’m not going to be the villain here,” she looked at her father. “You think a nice speech absolves you? Or your age?

“Want another quote? Here it is for you: ‘It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.’ Well, you can start,” she said and began walking away.

“Cara…”

“No, Dad, no. Enough,” she stopped and looked at him. “Enough. You wanted him,” she nodded towards me, “you can have him. Maybe he’ll give you back the best years of your life that you wasted on your family…” she shrugged. “Enjoy.”

It was such a bright day. The sun was pouring through the glass roof, and the light wood floors looked warm as sand on some exotic beach. The only memory of winter was in the silence that Caro left in her wake.

“She’ll get over it,” Liza said quietly.

“How do you know?” he asked, still looking at the place Caro was standing a moment ago.

“You did.”

Their eyes met. “It took me years to forgive my father.”

“It took me years to divorce you,” she smiled sadly. “Freedom comes high, but then… so does prison.”

“Oh, Beth…” his hand touched her cheek lightly, and they both shuddered from the contact.

She put her hand over his and gently drew it away. “Stop by Celeste,” she said, “she’ll have the papers for the painting prepared for you.”

Before we knew it, we were alone. Just Texas sun, black and beige paintings on the walls and the paralysis that grips you on hearing that the war is over: they’re announcing the victory parade already, and you’re still counting the dead.

You look back, you think, we could’ve done it all better, we could’ve found the words. You think, why planning your life is so much easier than living it?

I came up to him and lowered my forehead on his chest. He sighed, the way he does sometimes, with his whole body, and rested his chin on top of my head.

“You think you made a mistake?” I whispered.

“When?” he whispered back. “I made so many…”

“Today.”

I felt his hand on mine, he hesitated for a bit, then opened my palm and our fingers crisscrossed. “Will you help me with this wall?” he asked.

I smiled. “And with every one that’s ahead.” In spite of everything, for a moment, I felt peace, and it smelled of his sweater and tomatoes.

A week later I’d see the photo of the two of us, standing against that wall, with red juice looking like blood from a distance, floating around the net.

“Two fags in Austin,” someone wrote.

“Or just two people in love,” another person replied.

“A father and his son, you dipshits!” came an opinion.

“A couple of democrats upset there ain’t bathroom for them! #Trump2020”

“Burn in hell, you and your brain-dead president!!!”

“What son? It’s a chick!”

“Nah, just trapped in a woman’s body. As they all.”

“Looks like a crime scene to me…”

I stopped reading and saved the photo. It wasn’t so bad, I liked the lighting.

The truth is, no matter what you do, your life will always be one of those ambiguous images: some will see a beautiful young lady, others – an ugly old hag. If you’re lucky, at least those closest to you will forgive the unpleasant double peeking through unblemished features; if you’re lucky, they’ll remember that they have one, too. If.

I’m eating a tomato right now, my fingers slightly red and sticky, and it takes me back to that day – happiness, regret, relief, guilt, happiness, regret, relief, guilt… I would’ve done it all differently, I’m tempted to write and stop myself – if I could have, I would have. No use crying over spilled juice…

“Spilt,” Armand would’ve sighed.

Whatever. No use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you. As always, I can only hope that reading this wasn't a waste of your time.


	13. Chapter 13

“I got the boy!” I announced to my mom on the phone.

“How?”

“That’s a long story,” I smiled. “Well, no, it’s not, actually – took about half an hour in the end. But I got him, that’s the point. You wanted me to tell you, so I’m telling you. And no, I don’t want any questions, because I don’t have any answers yet. You can congratulate me though.”

“You ended it with Caroline…” she sighed.

“Yep. You can congratulate me on that, too.”

She didn’t. “What will happen now?”

That was a big one, so I changed the subject. I had no idea what or how would happen. Neither of us went to Austin expecting to return with a boyfriend, and both of us did, and in different ways and for different reasons we were both unprepared for it.

We flew back separately. I tried to change my ticket, but it turned out to be too much hassle at the last minute, and I didn’t want to pay a fee, so I said fuck it, I could survive several hours without him. Plus, I had to retrieve my stuff from Caro’s apartment, the one in Austin - I said goodbye to everything that was in New York: the way it looked then, she’d probably burn my summer sneakers left there - but I had my bag and my wallet locked in her new one, so I called Liza again and asked for help. She grumbled a bit, but in the end met me there with the key, waited while I gathered my things, refused to give me a motherly goodbye kiss and looked insultingly happy that I was finally out of her hair.

Ah, whatever.

Back in New York, I called Mom and started waiting for his next move. I’d never dated a guy until then, and Armand, with all his savoir faire and experience, hadn’t either, not out in the open at least. So, I guess, he decided to use what’d worked for him in the past and subjected me to an old-fashioned courtship, starting with wining and dining.

I remember that call when he first asked me out. We were so awkward, and I didn’t expect it. I thought how I’d planned to run into his office and pin him to the wall the moment I knew I could do it, but the reality was less spectacular and much quieter.

He asked if I’d like to have dinner with him. I said yes. Did I know the place? I knew how to get there.

“Well,” he cleared his throat, “see you then.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “See you.”

I didn’t find him when I arrived. The hostess came up and asked for my name; when I told her, she smiled and said that my companion was waiting for me in their back room, reserved for private dining.

It was darker than their main area: somber wooden panels on the walls, quiet music, one floor-to-ceiling window looked at a closed-off garden. What people paid for here was privacy and an opportunity to talk without being interrupted or overheard by someone at the next table, which in this city is often just three inches away from yours.

He was sitting with his back to me, staring into that garden, where a couple of evergreens were shedding the last snow of the season. There were few people, and on each table there was a small orange lamp, giving the place a cozy, warm look.

Hearing our steps, he turned and stood up. There was a pause, while we were looking at each other, both probably thinking that we didn’t really expect this day would ever come.

“When you’re ready to order, please press the button,” the hostess smiled.

“Yes,” he woke up. “Thank you.”

She left. He glanced at the table and then hastened to pull out a chair for me, paused and frowned.

“It’s ok,” I smiled. “Just don’t make a habit out of it.”

We sat down and stared at each other.

“You should try huevos rotos. It’s really good here,” he said finally.

“Ok.” That was as witty as I was able to go.

“And goat cheese.”

“Ok.”

“How was your day?” he tried.

“Ok,” I said again.

“We should probably order then…”

“Ok.”

My vision blurred and I blinked several times to fight off the tears. “I’m sorry,” I cleared my throat. “I don’t know… why. I thought… I thought it’d never happen, you know? I mean, I hoped, but… there were times…”

I didn’t cry in Austin. I didn’t cry on the plane or when it landed back in New York. I didn’t cry when I got back to my apartment, when I called Mom, when I woke up and went to work. I didn’t cry in that art center, when he told Caro that he was in love with me. And now, looking at him, his face bathing in warm orange light, I could think of nothing else.

“I’m sorry,” I shook my head. “I’m really sorry. I don’t even know what to say…”

He was looking at the table, turning a fork in his hand. “I didn’t think it’d happen, either,” he shrugged.

We ordered. He asked for a bottle of wine, and when it arrived, we ate in silence. It was probably great food, but I didn’t feel the taste.

He poured, and we didn’t know what the toast should be, so we simply nodded and drank it. It’s happiness. You think it’ll arrive with music and laughter, but it’s so quiet in reality, so intimate.

“My name isn’t Timothée,” I told him.

“No?”

“No… It’s Timothy, really. I just thought ‘Timothée’ sounded… more intriguing.”

He thought for a second. “I wear glasses.”

“Really?” I looked up. “I’ve never seen you…”

“I didn’t want you to,” he said quietly.

I wanted to cry again. “I’m happy right now. You should know that I’m really happy right now.”

He nodded, looking at me. “Me too.”

I put down the fork, threw a quick glance around, before I knew I was doing it, and then slowly slid my hand over the table to him. He hesitated for a bit and covered it with his. Big and warm, it practically swallowed mine, and I felt his thumb gently brushing my palm and swallowed.

He still had that beard, it changed his face so much, made him look older and sadder, and I wanted to know where it came from.

“What happened since December?” I asked.

He shifted his eyes to the garden behind my back and was silent for a long time. It was a lot, so he poured us more wine and then started talking.

He had an author with whom he worked on several books before. In January she brought to him another proposal with a couple of pre-written chapters - a story about a wife cheating on her husband. He thought it was trite, but was careful with his words, because every first draft is trite and if you’re hasty you risk losing a great story buried underneath.

At some point he realized that it was autobiographical, and when he asked her, she confessed it was happening still, that’s why she didn’t have an ending in mind. He thought the lack of an ending wasn’t the only problem, the bigger one was that it was absolutely bloodless: extramarital affairs happen every day, what’s so special about yours?

He suggested to change the point of view and write the story from the position of the husband, through his eyes. She didn’t like the idea, and he knew why she didn’t like it – it would add the element that was missing, guilt. Moreover, he began suspecting she’d started the affair only to write a book about it later.

They argued. She felt guilty, and the guiltier she felt, the angrier she became. So, when he finally said that there was no point in working on this book, because there were dozens just like it, only better, she threw a tantrum, went to her agent and terminated her contract with Random outright.

Every attempt to smooth it out failed. She was a rising star and knew it, and his boss wasn’t pleased about losing her, of course. There was more arguing, more unpleasant conversations. He’d lost another author in a similar manner just a year before, so it was all, yeah, you’re a great guy, Armand, but we’re big enough to lose you and not even notice.

Then Estelle happened.

“Not that I didn’t see it coming,” he sighed. “She was right. It was time.”

It was time to get married, that is. She was forty-six, she told him, she’d had enough of dating. She wanted a family, maybe not the kids, she wasn’t sure about the kids, but a person who’d have her back. Something real, solid.

“We aren’t teenagers anymore,” she said. “You must have seen how marriages born out of great passion usually end. We can have something more satisfying. A union, an alliance. We can build something that’ll last, based on trust and mutual understanding.”

He agreed. They could. He saw it happening – years slipping by, unnoticed. It would be a good marriage, but if it wasn’t, by the time they knew it, they’d realize it was too late to change horses.

And he saw that he couldn’t do it. It’s one thing to waste five or even ten years in your twenties, but at his age, maybe for the first time, you begin to understand that every day counts. And while fifty was declared the new thirty, cancer became the new plague. His own mother was first diagnosed with ovarian at fifty-three. She beat it then, but six years later it returned and killed her.

He remembered our conversation and asked himself – then what? He couldn’t stop thinking about it – then what? then what? then what?

“Then dying without ever living,” he looked at me and smiled sadly. “That’s what.”

He tried to explain all this to Estelle, and surprisingly, she understood. They separated amicably, and she moved to Washington to work on Cory Booker’s presidential campaign in 2020.

“He’s running?” I was interested.

He cocked his head. “Don’t even think about it,” he snorted. “We’re off the record here.”

“No such thing in my profession,” I grinned.

“Timothée…”

“Ok, ok,” I nodded.

Anyway, all this time Liza, as promised, was calling and regularly giving him a beating over me. He used to run three times a week, now he ran every day, because it helped him to relax and stop thinking for at least an hour. In February he caught a cold, didn’t think much about it and it grew into acute bronchitis, which sent him to bed for two weeks. 

His housekeeper took care of him, more or less. One day, trembling from fever, he suddenly saw himself being the grandfather of my children, and he couldn’t bear it.

He was still holding my hand, voice soft and measured, he was talking the way I’d never heard him talking before, and I realized how little time we spent together in all those months that led to this moment. There was so much we didn’t know about each other, so many things we didn’t say. Most of our conversations had been spent on trying to keep the distance between us, on carefully preserving the line that couldn’t be crossed without disastrous consequences.

“When that glass broke,” he looked down, “there, in Austin, I knew I could lie my way out of it. I could salvage it, laugh it off, pin it all on you,” he shrugged. “I knew it. I’ve been… I’ve lived through it before. But then I thought, ‘My God… my God, how many chances like that do you have? How often…’” he stopped and frowned. “What if I never feel it again? What if it’s the last time?.. What if you’re the last love in my life?” he looked at me. “How do you lose it? Where do you get the strength to lose it, at fifty?”

“I’m sorry…” I mumbled.

“Don’t cry,” he smiled. “These eggs are salty enough.”

“You say these… things…” I started blinking again. “What the hell do you expect?” 

He took a napkin and started drying my cheeks, grabbed my nose gently. “Blow.”

“Oh, fuck off!” I pushed his hand away and sniffed noisily. “Want to blow something - I have better things than my nose!” I glared at him.

He leaned back in his chair and laughed softly. “Oh, really?”

“Oh, yes,” I nodded. “And while we’re all so candid here, let’s get one thing out of the way first – I have a father, I don’t need another one. And I have a mom, too, so ‘parenting Timmy’ won’t be on the menu in this relationship.”

“What would you recommend then?”

“Oh, our kitchen will surprise you,” I sniffed again. “Just lie back and let it happen.”

“That sounds ominous,” he chuckled, “coming from the chef.”

He walked me to the subway station afterwards. We were quiet again. At one point I took his hand in mine and felt him stiffen, he let me hold it for a couple of steps, then gently withdrew it. I didn’t protest. I felt a bit weird too, and in the back of my mind I remember thinking, “This is a safe neighborhood to do it.”

These small things, you don’t always notice how they change your life, but they do. It wouldn’t be the last time I caught myself thinking something like that.

We didn’t know how to say goodbye, either - everything had to be relearned now. He was still mostly terra incognita to me, but I realized what he was going to do and decided to nip it in the bud.

“Foreheads are for parents,” I said sternly and offered my lips.

He smirked and kissed the tip of my nose. I was determined to correct the mistake and got on my tiptoes, aiming for his mouth. He put his huge hands on my shoulders and firmly returned me back to earth.

I narrowed my eyes. He wasn’t moved.

Then his hands slid down my shoulders and rested on my forearms, he frowned and squeezed experimentally.

“This is truly frightening,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, no athlete here,” I replied bitterly and turned away.

“No, no, I am…” he touched my chin and made me look at him. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I apologize.”

I glanced at his large frame – my skinniness was amplified by it. Even in this we were poles apart – everything mine a sharp contrast to everything his.

“What’s so frightening?” I whispered.

He swallowed. “I just… You seem so breakable…”

“We’ll manage,” I promised, and smirked. “Does it turn you on?”

He let me go and took a step back.

“It does, doesn’t it?” I smiled widely.

Suddenly his eyes changed. “Yes, it does.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. The way he looked at me… I missed my stop still thinking about it. God, the way he looked at me then… I’d thought he was bashful, one of those people who’d use every synonym in the dictionary before calling it what it is, a cock. He is not. He outgrew it.

So, what’s it like dating an old guy? Or simply a… guy? Well, let’s start with the “old” part. First of all, if you think it doesn’t make a difference and you won’t even notice it, trust me, you will. Age gap is a thing, and you’ll have to deal with it.

It’s not for everybody, I guess; but then Ferraris aren’t for everybody either, regardless of quality. It’s not only about affordability; it’s about the road too – going on a bumpy ride, get yourself a Hummer. I did. Has a mileage, but delivers. Change the upholstery, lubricate regularly, wash with a sponge – worth every penny. Impressive trunk, too.

Is such dating funny? Often it is. Armand had an Instagram, I discovered, and followed exactly two people – his daughter and Ariana Grande. The latter even he can’t fully explain, other than to shrug and admit that it’s mostly to stay relevant.

The stay relevant goal is achieved with intermittent success, admittedly. Put a gun to his head he wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference between Kardashian sisters and Jonas brothers.

2Pac? Yes, of course.

Eminem? Well, yes.

Common? Common what?

Nicki Minaj? I… think so. I showed him Iggy Azalea. “Yes,” he nodded happily, “Nicki.”

So, that’s that.

Favorite song then? Easy, _The Show Must Go On._

Favorite movie? _Lawrence of Arabia _and _Dog Day Afternoon_.

De Niro or Pacino? Pacino, no question.

He read first Harry Potter, but “mostly it fell on Beth.” He watched all the movies, though, and thinks it counts.

First crush? Mel Gibson.

Yes, good old Mel. Thought he was always an asshole extraordinaire? You should’ve seen him in the 80s. Between what you know - and unfortunately hear - now and what it was, lies Hollywood that’s done worse things to better people. So, yes, Mel Gibson.

I bet you’re ready for Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis and you sort of understand Seagal, but there’s also Chuck Norris. Big star in his day, whose flicks belong on Comedy Central for you and are fond memories for him; so you’ll probably have to watch a couple of them, exactly a couple more than you’ve always planned, but he’ll have to sit through 23 MCU movies, and you can draw something obscene on his face while he’s asleep – compromise, I say, compromise is what makes or breaks relationships.

You both can still remember pre-Internet days, only you do it with horror and he with perverse nostalgia. Yes, those days when googleless citizenry used to turn on a wrong street searching for “that damn bookstore” and get separated from their cash and watches as a result. There was a “sense of community” then, he’ll tell you, not like now. He doesn’t mean it was perfect, no, it was simply… better. What better? Reaganomics? Well, at least people didn’t compete in eating detergent then, he’ll glare; meaning, of course, that if it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t be doing it now, either.

He used to write letters. Yes, real letters, so from time to time he’ll try to reproduce the experience with texts. Get used to it. Get used to the period marks, too, because that can be a deal-breaker here.

“These emojis! What _is_ this?” he exploded once, during another one of our dates.

(Ok, he didn’t explode. He isn’t an explosive guy by nature.)

I opened my mouth, then realized that the question was rhetorical.

“It’s not even hieroglyphics! Those at least stood for letters! These are pictograms! It’s caveman’s level of literacy,” he glared at me. “I have an English degree, why do I have to use Google now to understand what my child is trying to tell me?

“And all those urs, and lols, and…” he shook his head. “You write ur… Ur is a prefix denoting ‘original’ or ‘primitive.’ Or Ur, as a civilization in ancient Mesopotamia, but that’s where we are going now. That’s where we’re going…

“And this?” he wrote something on a napkin and slid it to me.

“In case you missed it,” I smiled.

“Yes, I missed it!” his nostrils flared. “I missed it when my language turned into a Cold War cipher. Some people I know,” he looked at me significantly, “don’t even capitalize now.”

“Well…” I shrugged.

“I can understand why ‘advertisement’ was shortened to ‘ad,’ but can’t you even say ‘vacation’ now? Will that last syllable kill you? What kind of word is ‘vacay’?”

Yes, get used to it, too - everything questionable done in the last twenty-five years will be laid at your feet and written off as your responsibility, not as a logical continuation of things whose roots are, you know, in the 80s.

Recently _GQ_ had to clarify that, when they wrote that Alexander Vindman got a Purple Heart for wounds he suffered from IUD, they meant “IED.” You’d think the torch fell out of Lady Liberty’s mighty hand, judging by Armand’s appalled face.

“This is the level,” he told me. “It won’t get better. Trust me, it won’t.”

On the other hand, all those tasks insurmountable to you, like reading instructions for kitchen appliances, are a routine to him. We have a blender – he knows all the settings and speeds, I learned where the outlet and the “on” button are and stopped at that.

So, yes, he’s grumpy, meticulous, fussy and irritable. Why is he all those things? Mostly because you’re _so_ young and it scares the hell out of him. Whatever he’s telling you, don’t listen, because it does. He didn’t expect to fall for someone like you, and now he’s afraid to look ridiculous, pathetic, desperate. When he hears about people chasing their quickly fading youth, it saddens him, he takes it as a personal reproach, a veiled hint.

He used to shake his head at guys getting involved with their secretaries, students, assistants, at those not confident enough to date their peers, at DILFs… and now he’s suddenly one of them, and it doesn’t sit well with him.

I didn’t see the scope of the problem until he invited me to one of his favorite places, a small Italian family restaurant that doesn’t look like much from the outside, but has the best tagliatelle I’ve ever tried.

Armand knew the owner who was also the chef, and the guy came out to personally greet us that day. They exchanged some pleasantries, and when it came to me, Giorgio smiled and asked: “Nephew?”

Armand paused and glanced at me, then back at his friend.

“No,” he said quietly and sort of shrugged. “It’s… Timothée.”

Giorgio was in his sixties or seventies, it’s difficult to know for sure with people of that age. He looked at me again, then at Armand, noticed the sudden furtiveness, and a huge smile flourished on his face.

“Oh, but well done, vecchio mio!” he clapped Armand’s shoulder. “_Well _done!”

I’d never seen Armand so flustered, and it’s quite rare for him. He’s lived through enough to mostly sigh at all things outrageous. He mostly sighs at me, for example. Here he was supremely uncomfortable, and when he is, he usually tries to disappear into his jacket, like a turtle, which, given his size, is very conspicuous and hardly possible.

“I apologize,” he shook his head, when Giorgio left us alone. “He is… Italian.”

“So he can spot a good lay?” I chuckled.

“You aren’t…”

“I am not?” I made a face. “I think I’m a ten.”

“No doubt,” he snorted. “The brightest zircon in the diadem of American journalism.”

“Aren’t you very clever?” I rolled my eyes.

“No, not very. That’s what Vidal said of Capote, only pertaining to literature.”

“Oh, I like him,” I smiled. “Joyce Carol Oates – three most depressing words in English language, right?”

“Have you read her?” he raised a brow.

“No… but I agree.”

“_These_ are four most depressing words in English language,” he shook his head.

“Alright,” I groaned. “I will. And Vidal, too.”

“The books you can skip,” he smirked.

In the course of the meal the discussion of all things gloomy continued. One of them, I discovered, was his view of our relationship. It wouldn’t last, he was sure of it, but that was fine, he was prepared for it.

Why wouldn’t it last? Well, because it rarely does. And whatever happens, he’ll suffer the most, naturally. Look at Isherwood, look at Wilde.

Look at Auden. An illustration was provided – Auden once fell for a young beautiful sailor, and that guy wiped the floor with his heart, though left some blood for his verse. Brodsky once saw him watching that sailor leave in search of a trick for the night and crying in public, which presumably led him to conclude that poet-homosexual was solitude squared. 

“I don’t aspire to be Auden,” Armand assured me.

And if I still had any doubts about our future, there were also the Greeks, the Greeks knew all about fatally beautiful boys who eviscerate you with their fleeting love – a breathtaking moment of light, for which you pay until the final darkness welcomes you in its embrace.

“In other words, I’m your last hurrah. Right?” I asked and went back to chewing.

He didn’t like it phrased like that. Greeks, apparently, used to say it better.

I was trying to understand where all this was coming from. I wouldn’t accuse him of chronic optimism, but this defeatist bullshit was a bit too much, even for him.

“Did you give the same uplifting speech to Estelle?” I asked.

“That’s different.”

Because she was his age, or just about. The rest was the same. I was going to call him an idiot, then realized that I’d gone through it too - in Maine, during my conversation with Liza, and even before, when, half-jokingly but only half, I was preparing myself for his death.

“I know what’s happening here,” I looked at him. “It’s natural.”

“What?” he frowned.

“Relativity,” I shrugged. “It affects me too, and why wouldn’t it?”

“Relativity?”

I saw it clearly in my mind, but it was difficult to explain. “Look,” I glanced at the table and zeroed in on salt and pepper. “Yeah, that will work. Here,” I took the salt, “that’s Earth. You’re here. And there,” I grabbed the pepper and set at a distance from the salt, “that’s me. Uranus. Ok, not Uranus,” I cringed. “Neptune. I’m Neptune.

“So, your year is 365 days, right? And mine… well, who the hell knows, but it’s much longer. Much, much longer. As a result, we count time differently, we perceive it differently, and all because of what?” I looked at him.

He frowned.

“The Sun!” I helped. “Because in our private solar system, the Sun is death, unfortunately, and it warps our vision, it amplifies our fears. And you’re…” I bit my lip, “Earth is closer to it, its orbit, your orbit, is smaller, so you think the time runs faster for you than it does for me, on my slow, far away Neptune. That’s why you’re so pessimistic.”

“It doesn’t seem to run faster,” he remarked drily, “it does.”

“Nah, nah, nah. The solar years run faster, not the time. The time is the same. You didn’t see the difference with Estelle, because she was from Earth too, but you feel it with me, because I’m… from Neptune. You _feel _older _only_ because I’m younger.”

“I don’t _feel _older, I’m ol…”

“Choose the planet,” I interrupted.

“What planet?”

“Something between Earth and Neptune,” I shrugged. “What’s your favorite?”

“I’ve always been partial to Jupiter,” he smiled.

“Jupiter? Great! Most people would say Saturn, so let’s leave it to them and let’s move to Jupiter. It’s a big one, there’ll be place for the two of us.”

“Right,” he nodded.

“There’s no other way, Armand – we move to Jupiter or we’ll mope our way to break-up. No other way. I’m glad that mortality made you react and seize the day, but we can’t live like this, we’ll both go crazy.”

“Timo…”

“I’m not going to eviscerate you.”

“I’m sure you believe it.”

I sighed. “In every relationship hides a potential heartbreak, every person you meet can wreck your life in ways you can’t imagine. I’m no different. You think I’m different, but I’m not. Forget about the Sun, come live with me on Jupiter.” I frowned, “Only the beard’s got to go – shave it and you have a visa.”

He smiled.

Now, is this as simple as that? One conversation solves all your problems? No, of course not. He’ll still be scared, he’s got more to lose than you, after all, so he can’t help being scared.

The thing is, life expectancy and love expectancy don’t coincide in our society. We pay it lip service all the time, but just wait until your grandma announces that she’s in love – there’ll be family discussions, concerned looks and _maybe we should involve a professional? The old girl’s clearly lost it! _

When _Basic Instinct_ came out, Sharon Stone stole the show with one shot, but besides flushed cheeks and admiring gasps there was also laughter in the cinemas. Why? Because at some point Michael Douglas’s decidedly unperky ass graced the screen. Even those who tried to compliment him said that it was “very brave” of him to appear in a sex scene _at his age. _He was forty-eight at the time.

No wonder we’re spending more than any other country on the planet on cosmetic surgery per capita. _All you need is love_, we were advised, but fine print at the bottom suggests that love is reserved for the young. And we’re not along in this conviction.

“Youth, beauty, strength: the criteria of physical love are exactly the same as those of Nazism.” That’s Houellebecq for you, he’s French, so, I guess, they concur.

Well, some would say, but that’s physical love – no one says the grandma can’t love, let her love all she wants, it’s the sex part that’s unacceptable. Yes, very neat, but love without sex is only possible between relatives and friends, and so we’re back to square one – if you’re past the expiration date for romance, go and love your children and grandchildren, otherwise it’s ewww…

So, you get together with an old guy, he knows all this, he’s heard it all before, and your youth, while shiny and mesmerizing, terrifies him. If you don’t know how to deal with this or simply don’t want to, better stay away, because you can do a lot of damage, no matter your intentions. Bones grow weaker with age – a lighter blow causes more suffering. And if it’s a woman you have in your sights – good luck, pal. She’s probably been told countless times that after forty only money can save her, and she saw how it went down for Demi Moore, among many, many others; so she meets you, in your roaring twenties, with a giant neon sign on your forehead: “Here comes your potentially costliest mistake!” - and you think she’s euphoric? Yeah, good luck…

In short, the age difference matters. No way around it. And the bigger it is, the more it weighs on you two. Also with age arrives something you probably didn’t have to deal with before – history. His history, most of which doesn’t involve but can and will affect you. My guy has an ex-wife, a daughter, a father and a housekeeper, not counting his friends, and colleagues, and acquaintances, and they aren’t going away any time soon. Well, the dad might, but I hope he’ll stay around a bit longer.

Armand’s family is like any other family, really – just a group of people who went through a lot together and, as a consequence, periodically can’t stand each other. It’s guns and roses, basically: today all sweetness and love, but keep a Kevlar vest for tomorrow, just in case.

You’d think it wouldn’t involve Caro, being the daughter and all, but it does. From the beginning she was a touchy subject between us. I tried to talk about her, but was immediately discouraged.

“You have a 25-year-old kid?” Armand glared at me.

“No,” I sighed.

“Then please don’t give advice.”

I asked if they talked since he’d returned from Austin, and he said they did, and that was it.

“She is fine,” he shrugged.

I didn’t know what to do or even if I could do anything, so I decided to leave it alone for now. There were a lot of things I got wrong anyway: I thought that his and Liza’s marriage was arranged – and I was wrong; I suspected he’d stopped writing because of his dad – and I was wrong; I thought he’d always been an editor – and I was wrong.

“I was in the Coast Guard,” he told me.

“What?” I stared at him.

“Yes,” he smiled. “For three years.”

“Oh, so that’s where swimming and vodka come from?” I remembered.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about…”

He met Liza while there, she was a waitress in one of the places he and the guys on his boat usually frequented. There was some “unsavory” boyfriend, and he helped her to scare him off. They got along, that’s how he described it, and then his mother was diagnosed with cancer and started telling him she didn’t want to die without seeing her grandchildren… He didn’t want to talk more, and I didn’t insist.

But I was really interested in his writing. I was pretty sure he wasn’t subpar, nothing about him was subpar. He listened to me with a small smile on his face, while I painted the picture of a young author whose hopes were crushed by a cruel unfeeling world, not ready for his talent.

“Alright,” he chuckled, “you can take a breath now. It’s not as tragic as you think. I don’t know about ‘crushed,’ it was… disappointing at the time, sure, but… While I don’t appreciate how my father did it, I know that he was right – I’m no Camus.

“But if I wanted to continue writing, no one was stopping me. Because no one can. People don’t write for a living, they write to live. I’m just not one of those people.”

“_I_ write for a living,” my eyes narrowed.

“Then you know what I’m talking about,” he smiled. “If you’re any good, one day you’ll change… or you’ll stop.”

“Am I… any good?”

“Let’s not mix business with pleasure,” his eyes were all cat.

Yes, there were a lot of things I didn’t know. I thought he smoked. Well, he does, technically. Two cigarettes a year.

Yep, that’s right. Exactly two.

“But that day…” I gaped at him, “when we… You remember?”

“Yes,” he sighed wistfully. “I was saving it for Thanksgiving.”

And wasted it on me.

He thinks he’s average - I think he’s extraordinary. He believes he’s lucky to have me - I agree. Because I like it when things are mutual.

He is very honest when he doesn’t have to lie, and until you spoke with enough people you wouldn’t realize that it matters. He has weakness for crème brûlée, knows every bar Dylan Thomas drowned his gift in and doesn’t like heights. He respects but doesn’t love Shakespeare, and doesn’t respect but loves Dickens. He’s enchanted by Chandler, he sometimes dreams in Ellroy. He cried when John Lennon was killed and believes he once saw David Berkowitz on the street. He spent his 12th birthday in Studio 54 with his father, at fifteen kissed a guy that he can’t forget and lost his virginity to a girl he can’t remember. His biggest regret – Beth; best decision – Beth. He taught himself Portuguese, because translations deceive…

“Say something,” I smiled.

“O que você quer saber, gatinho?”

“Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?” my cheeks were burning.

“Tomará que já seja feito.”

I was falling in love all over again, not with an idea this time, but with a real person. We still hadn’t figured out how to hold hands in the street - we tried sometimes, but it felt forced, so we stopped. Our dates were mostly in the backrooms, private, intimate places with muted light and a whisper of piano. He was trying to avoid running into someone he knew, I think, but he was making an effort, he was disassembling, rearranging his whole life piece by piece, night after night, so I didn’t feel offended. We were both learning, both discovering how to show affection to another man and not be ashamed about it.

In April, after several rewrites, multiple fact-checks and a sit-down with the lawyers, without whom no significant piece is published these days, my Bernie article finally saw the light of day, and I wanted to celebrate. We could go to another restaurant, but I decided it was time for him to see my place.

We agreed on Saturday afternoon. I went above and beyond to clean up my apartment – moped the floors, dusted the windowsills, even got rid of the cobwebs in the corners. It wasn’t exactly sparkling, but it was as pristine as the day I moved in there. As a final touch, I sorted out the box my mom sent me in August – there were a couple of scarves that I could have used in February, but, well, every year had a February, they’d come in handy next time, I decided.

Anyway, it looked very nice. Not a lot of furniture, but in New York space is a precious commodity, so my apartment was downright luxurious by these metrics. Uncluttered. Yes, very uncluttered. Airy.

I agonized over cooking for a time, then stopped and told him it’d be take-out, and he didn’t seem to mind. So that was good. The thing that stumped me momentarily was flowers and candles and music and all those things I’d have done had he been a girl. He wasn’t, though, and I wasn’t sure what would be appropriate here. I loved candles myself, but candles are suggestive, they are _hey, stay the night_ sign… Then I remembered that it would be afternoon when he arrived – enough of natural light – and bought three pale pink roses, cut the stems short and put them in a simple water glass, which is basically what they do in restaurants now.

It looked fine. And knowing that he was so fond of all things Portuguese, I found a place not far from where I lived and ordered there – again, I had no idea what he or the Portuguese liked, so I asked and they suggested boiled octopus. I looked at it, and well… It’s an acquired taste, I guess. They sighed and offered chicken. I took the chicken - with a lot of something else for garnish – and a couple of salads: he could eat my salad and I’d eat his chicken, if it came to that.

And, of course, I diligently washed my jeans again, because, who knows, he might feel adventurous and I might get lucky even without the candles, so what I had in terms of backside needed to be on display. Just a gentle reminder, you know?

We were less awkward by then, but we were still careful around each other. When he arrived, seemingly too big for my doorframe, he kissed my cheek, I glared at him and he kissed it again, then handed me a bottle of wine. In truth, a whole candle-stand wouldn’t have changed his mind about sleeping with me that day, I believe.

It all went wrong the second he crossed the threshold, to be honest. I don’t know what he expected, but it probably wasn’t what he saw.

When I was in college, my parents visited me a couple of times. Well, Dad came once or twice, my mom drove there every two months and every time her face displayed the same concern and despair that I was seeing now in Armand.

He looked around and frowned. The parent mode was kicking in, I realized. I thought we were past it, that I’d schooled him into seeing me as something else, but he was a dad, a dad with 25 years of experience, and old habits die hard.

I may have said it already, but it bears repeating – if you’re dating an old dude, it’s highly likely you’re dating a parent, and a parent is that type of human whose main instincts are to protect and annoy. It’s also likely that he had enough time to hone and perfect them to a degree that’d drive any non-parent around him - read me - crazy.

“What?” I folded my arms. “I cleaned it up!”

“Together with the furniture?”

“There _is_ furniture!” I protested. “There is a bed, and a bookcase, and a closet. That’s furniture!”

“I wouldn’t call _that_ a bookcase…”

“Ok, shelving,” I rolled my eyes. “Hey, what are?...” I ran after him because he marched into my kitchen, or kitchenette, I guess.

He opened one cupboard, then another, then…

“Don’t!” I cried.

He paused in front of the third. “Where’s food, Timothée?”

“On the table!” I pointed.

“Is that all?”

I looked at the salads and chicken in plastic containers. “There’s also ice-cream in the fridge,” I shrugged.

He opened the third cupboard and stared at the stacks of ramen and Twinkies stored there.

“Yes, I like some night snacks. Sue me. Plus, when I write… It’s convenient to have…” I sighed. “Ok, I don’t cook, I told you that. What’s the fucking problem?”

He was still staring into that cupboard, then slowly turned to me. “You don’t like snacks – you buy cheap sweets to kill the hunger,” he said simply. 

My cheeks burned. “You’re being very rude,” I swallowed, “for a guest.”

He ignored me and went to the bathroom. He didn’t have to ask where it was – you could hardly get lost in my apartment. I didn’t hear anything for a long time. When he returned, he faced me, mirroring my pose.

“Your plumbing is all rotten, it’ll blow up soon. There’s moss on it. Have you seen it?”

“Well, it won’t blow up tonight, don’t worry,” I replied bitterly. “Won’t dirty your Armani, relax.”

“It’s Tom Ford,” he glanced at his shoes.

“Well, then I’ll write to him apologizing for the fact that his precious creation had to suffer my linoleum floors!”

“I don’t mean to…”

“You’re being an asshole!” I cut him off.

“Get used to it. Timo…”

“What?”

“This can’t continue,” he said calmly.

I felt as if someone kicked me in the chest. “What… can’t continue?” I whispered.

“You living like this,” he glanced around. “It can’t go on.”

“Have you been around recently? About 20% of this city live below poverty levels,” I scoffed.

“I’m not dating 20% of this city.” 

I was praying silently that it wasn’t all going where I thought it was going. “I don’t need a sugar daddy, Armand.”

“Great,” he chuckled. “Because I can’t afford to be one. This was a Black Friday deal,” he tapped his foot lightly.

“I’ll get a raise soon,” I shrugged. “It’s looking up… I talked to our editor, after this Bernie piece… It’ll get better. I’ll buy a carpet, maybe,” I smiled and took a step towards him.

He looked down at me and smiled too, his hand found mine and he held it gently. He looked around again and shook his head, thinking about something, then his eyes returned to me and there was a decision there. “Come live me,” he said.

“What???” I blinked and stepped back instinctively. “I won’t live with you!” I laughed.

“Why?”

“Why? Because!” I thought he was crazy. “It’s too fucking soon, don’t you think?”

He seemed embarrassed, though I didn’t really see why. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he rubbed his chin, frustrated. “You’ll have your own room, of course. I didn’t mean… That’s not what I’m offering.”

“Why would I have my own room? I’ve wanted to sleep with you since time immemorial.”

“Well, then…”

We stared at each other.

“I won’t live with you,” I repeated.

His lips moved, going for a smirk, I was sure, but he caught it in time. “I’m lonely,” he said somberly.

“Oh, fuck off!” I rolled my eyes. “What am I, Barnum Circus for you? He’s lonely. Get a dog.”

“I’ll buy you Twinkies…”

“That’s creepy, you know?”

He took a step forward, I took a step back. “There’s food. One hot meal a day guaranteed. And a shower.”

I smelled my armpit. “Don’t need a shower…” I mumbled and retreated some more.

“Nice view. Central Park.”

“I’ve seen it already. Trees are trees, even on Manhattan.”

We were standing very close again. He hesitated, then put his hands on my shoulders.

“You got used to it, right?” he asked quietly.

“To what?”

“To live knowing you have no one in this city,” he touched my cheek. “It must have been hard.”

I turned away. It was difficult to talk suddenly. “I have my parents. They do everything to help… It’s just never enough, you know?” I looked at him. “I try and I try and… They’ve done so much for me, and I… they have so little, and I’m here, and I… It’s like I’m always coming back to ask them for more… You can’t imagine how… guilty I feel… all the time… because they have so little… because I…”

It had never happened to me before. I didn’t know it could. I didn’t know men cried like that, not in front of other men, anyway. And it happened so fast – I was fine one moment, we were joking and then, as if on cue, I completely fell apart.

It’s not that I was crying… I was sobbing, really, and I couldn’t stop. As if I’d been living with a huge sack full of stones, hung over my head, and someone cut the strings, and all those stones started tumbling down on me, each new blow sharper than the one before.

It wasn’t only the events of that day, my anger, disappointment and, yes, humiliation at his reaction to my apartment; it was months in the making… No, not months, years, really. Since the moment I arrived in this city – no friends, no support, no promises – and had to put on a brave face every day, because it was pretty obvious that screaming wouldn’t help. And there was no one to tell it to. I couldn’t tell my mom, she was worried as it is, so I always said that it was fine, everything was fine, when it wasn’t.

I couldn’t tell her that I was scared, that I had doubts, that most of the time I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell her that I was afraid of being mugged and probably beaten into a coma for thirty bucks in my pocket, the way it happened to a guy on my street. I couldn’t share with her that the girl downstairs told me she once saw a rat poking out of her toilet bowl. That my manager half-jokingly advised me not to call the police over a burglary, because no one investigated those anymore. That one night some drunk guy started banging on my door by mistake and threatened to shoot the lock out, if I didn’t open. That after years in my small town, I was overwhelmed by this city that used to never sleep in the 50s and barely even blinks now.

I couldn’t tell her that there was never enough money, no matter how much she sent me. That I knew she thought it was a lot, but it was a lot in Otter’s, not in New York City. And, God, how guilty I felt every time I received it - they were trying so hard, they’d been saving for years for my college, but when the time came, it still wasn’t enough, because tuition costs doubled every nine years and salaries has been stagnating since the 70s.

I wanted my parents to be proud of me, I wanted them to know that it was worth it, every vacation they skipped, every nice dress or fancy jacket that they didn’t buy, every small repair that the house needed but that had to be postponed again and again, I wanted them to know that it was worth it, because I got a job finally. I wanted to tell them that I’d be able to help _them _from now on, and I couldn’t, because my prestigious job of saving democracy from dying in darkness paid me less than some waitresses were getting on this island - money in journalism comes from book deals and TV appearances, but to get those you have to have a recognizable name, and to get it you need to break a really big story, and to break a story you need contacts, sources, which take years to develop.

So it was money, 24/7, relentlessly, trying to save a buck here and a cent there, and still praying that my boots would survive one more winter, because I really couldn’t afford new ones this month. Mom would call and I’d say, “It’s ok, don’t worry about me,” thinking: you’ve worried about me so much for so long - I’m so sorry, I don’t have better news for you; I’m so sorry I’m still a burden. If you only knew how it shames me…

It should have become better when Caro appeared, but it didn’t. I didn’t feel less lonely or less afraid with her, I was realizing. In part, because she couldn’t help me, but really because I couldn’t tell her all this, either – even if she’d understood, she’d have felt pity for me, and who wants pity from their girlfriend? All those expensive gifts, nights out with her friends, I dreaded them deep down, but I brushed it off and went on, thinking that it didn’t matter, when in reality they were just another bricks in that wall of solitude that grew around me.

Then Armand… finding out I was attracted to a man… I joked about it, but I was confused, blindsided, terrified. Feeling guilty for deceiving Caro, feeling ashamed for possibly disappointing my parents.

All those nights when I lay paralyzed by fear of losing him, thinking that we had no chance. What if he doesn’t want me? What if he’ll never love me?

And the election… God, this hellish election… the incessant vitriol, from both sides… losing faith, losing respect for everyone involved… death threats, almost every day… I thought they didn’t bother me, but they did… fear of losing my job, always, when a clumsy joke can cost you a job, always…

The engagement… Christmas… my mom… thinking every day that I was doing everything wrong… that I was losing control over my life… and needing someone, needing someone so much to come and hold me and tell me they’ll be there for me, whatever it is, they’ll be there for me, because it’s not so scary when there are two of you…

I didn’t know all these things were there, that I bottled them down and ignored, and now it was all pouring out of me in one endless river of tears.

He picked me up, went and sat on the bed, still holding me in his arms. I felt him moving, and in the back of my mind realized that he was trying to pull the comforter we were sitting on from underneath him. I didn’t try to help him, simply clutched him harder. He stopped and hid me inside his coat, he was still wearing that camel coat he came in; short time later, he managed to free the comforter and wrapped me in it too.

I don’t know how long we sat like that. He was silent. I stopped crying and shaking when I didn’t have strength for either anymore. I don’t think I slept, but I might have, for a little while – it was so warm and safe in his arms. I told my mom the truth – it’s the best feeling in the world when he holds you in his arms.

When I looked up at him again, it was dark. There were reflections of street lights on his cheek, and I noticed a drop of sweat on his temple – he sat in his coat, my heated body pressed to him, that comforter over us both, for who knows how long.

He didn’t say a word. God, how grateful I was that he didn’t say a word, didn’t ask anything, especially that most moronic of all questions, “Are you ok?” You lie bleeding on the sidewalk, somebody will always come up and ask you, “Are you ok?” And for so long I was nodding and answering, “Sure. Never better.”

My whole face was burning. I could barely open my eyes, they felt enormous, full of grit. His shirt under my cheek was drenched. I tried to wipe my nose, and he looked at me. A second later I was offered a handkerchief.

We kept sitting. Every time I thought he was going to get up, I clutched him harder. My last fear, the biggest of them all, was slowly dissipating – what if it’s not love, I sometimes asked myself, what if I’m chasing a pretty face? What if, the moment I have him, he’ll turn out to be a pale shadow of everything I dreamed him to be?

“We’re the real deal,” I rasped.

He kissed the tip of my nose, and after a brief moment of hesitation, his lips lightly touched mine. It was our first kiss since the election night, our second kiss in total.

I didn’t want him to go, but I couldn’t help feeling slightly embarrassed over my outburst and I knew he wouldn’t want to sleep in the bed Caro and I slept in so many times, so I didn’t try to stop him when he was leaving. I made him take the long cold by then chicken and both salads with him, though. He protested, of course, but I said it was important – the guest shouldn’t leave hungry, my mom wouldn’t approve. So I put it in a paper bag and gave it to him.

He wasn’t my first kiss, first date, first love, and I wasn’t his, but he was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and I told him so. He nodded – the feeling was mutual.

Meanwhile, Trump’s first 100 days in office were almost over: Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to the Supreme Court, another batch of Pulitzers was awarded, North Korea fired another missile towards Japan, Syria was on fire, Venezuela was teetering on the brink of civil war, we dropped the “mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan, and so on, and so forth. It was all important, I wrote about some of it, but for a brief sweet moment I allowed myself not to care – I was busy moving to Jupiter. 

Armand promised he’d buy me a pair of boots with bootstraps and I could pull myself up from West Side from then on. I hadn’t seen Bernie being much heartbroken over a million bucks in his account, so I thought I shouldn’t be either over this sudden bonanza. Estelle was right, after all – 2017 was promising to be a very different year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!


	14. Chapter 14

Words matter. To an editor, they matter a lot.

I told him I’d move in with him and thought he’d let it go. I thought he’d be like Caro, to be honest, that I’d say, “Look, I have four boxes of stuff…” and it’d sound the death knell for the whole great scheme. Well, he wasn’t like Caro – he used to jump into the East River at any temperature and swim towards whatever object was floating out there without complaining, while in the service, because orders aren’t suggestions, because he swore an oath, because words mattered there, too.

I, on the other hand, used to think and plan mostly in “yeah…”, “sure…” and “uhm…” So, you can say that the laziest force met its immovable object there.

I was looking at the sharks behind the glass, he was watching me. There were few people around, because it was Wednesday, I think, and we were going to have lunch together, but instead he dragged me to the Aquarium.

“What would you do in my place?” he asked, frustrated. “I can’t give you money – you won’t take it; I can’t give you food – you’ll be offended, and I can’t even invite you anywhere now, because you insist on paying for yourself and I know it’s tough for you. So, what would you do in my place?” 

“It’s not as bad as you imagine,” I sighed. “I will…”

“How much are your credit card debts?” he interrupted.

“Oh, Jesus…”

“And you also have a student debt. Right?”

I looked at him sharply. “What, you’re going to pay it off too now?”

“I’m not going to pay for anything, I told you that already,” he sighed. “I just don’t think you see the gravity of your own situation.”

“The gravity of my situation…” I rolled my eyes. “Please!”

“Timothée, have you heard about a credit score?”

“I don’t need a loan.”

“Now. You don’t need it _now_. But you have no idea what may happen. What if one of your parents loses their job? What if one of them gets sick? What if you have an accident that your insurance can’t cover? You’ll go under in seconds and for a long, long time, because the moment you need money the only option left to you will be a payday loan with 300% interest rate.”

“I’ll move in with you, I told you already,” I groaned.

“When?”

“Don’t be pushy,” I glared.

A big gray shark turned and was swimming towards him, blood-curdling smile on its face. “Let me take care of you,” he said quietly. “It’s part of love.”

I glanced at his blueish profile, then took a quick look around and slid my hand into his pocket.

“But I want to take care of you, too.”

“You may have your chance yet,” he smiled.

I caught the melancholy in his voice and groaned silently. “I thought we agreed that you weren’t dying.”

“I’m not dying,” he squeezed my hand, “but there are certain realities… You’re dating a person who is 60% more likely to have a stroke than you are - the guy from our YA team had one last year, and he’s only forty-seven.”

“If I edited YA, I’d croak too,” I rolled my eyes.

“Let me take care of you,” he said again. “If we’re serious here… The old take care of the young, then the young take care of the old – it’s the circle of life, it’s natural.

“You won’t have to worry about rent or food, will pay off your existing debts, maybe even save some money, then, if it doesn’t work out, you can leave at any moment. I promise I won’t…” he stopped seeing my angry expression. “Alright, alright, no talk about break-up. You’re right.”

“You mentioned love,” I grinned.

“I did,” he nodded solemnly.

“And you’re very much in love?”

“Very much.”

I leaned closer and put my chin on his shoulder. “And I remind you of Coutinho?”

“Coutinho?” he frowned.

“You said, when we were talking… I checked it later. He’s cute.”

He chuckled, “I said ‘gatinho.’”

“What’s that?”

“Kitten.”

“Kitten?” I glared at him. “I’m a lion of journalism!”

“Not to me,” he whispered and kissed me lightly. “Not to me…” Blue shadows were dancing on our faces, I immediately forgot about the sharks and money and death, caught his lower lip with my teeth and licked it slowly. Wave of warmth rushed through me, when I realized he was smiling.

We heard some commotion behind and turned simultaneously. Armand frowned slightly. I followed his eyes and saw some bespectacled middle-aged guy with a little girl – she was tugging him by the hand, apparently towards us, while he was whispering something urgently.

“Walter?” Armand called.

The man froze and threw a guilty look in our direction. “Armand…” he tried to smile. “Keri!”

The girl he was trying to subdue used this momentary distraction to free her hand from his clutch and ran to us. Having underestimated her own momentum, she bumped into Armand on arrival, but bounced off with enviable grace. Judging by her huge brown eyes, full of questions, the two of us were decidedly more interesting than anything you could find at the bottom of the ocean.

“Hello, Keri,” Armand smiled.

Sweet little Keri didn’t waste time. “What were you doing?”

Hearing that, Walter, who was just coming up, looked as embarrassed as if he’d barged into our bedroom and caught us sixty-nining there. “We were going to see the turtles,” he sounded suitably apologetic. “Let’s go see the turtles, honey,” he tried to grab her hand again, but Keri was having none of it.

“What were…”

“Jeanne said she ran into you at Vitae,” Walter interrupted her loudly.

“Oh, that’s right,” Armand nodded. “Dora invited me for an hour of invigorating gossip.”

“How’s she?”

“Battling with her German translators,” he chuckled. “Apparently, they don’t have a word for ‘serendipity’ there, struggle to connect it with Sri Lanka and as a consequence don’t know how to market her book.”

They kept on in that lane, and I glanced at Keri, who seemed very offended by being interrupted so unceremoniously. I crouched in front of her, and our eyes met.

She studied my face for a moment and frowned. “You were kissing,” she said accusingly.

Now, this is tricky, with kids – it all depends on the parents, who can be Presbyterian, vegetarian or libertarian, but are invariably convinced that their child should be too, hence all the bloody fights around the common core and what it should include – Jesus has a lot of supporters, Darwin fewer. On sex education, though, most are in agreement – as Napoleon recommended, it should be “short and obscure.”

Keri looked about six.

The Walter dude didn’t seem particularly threatening, but, again, you never know with parents – sometimes it’s the quiet ones who’ll feed you to the sharks most enthusiastically.

“People sometimes kiss,” I said carefully.

She pondered it for a moment, then looked up – and up, and up, and up – at Armand.

“Yes,” she nodded back at me. “Why?”

I chewed my lip and glanced at Walter again. “You like turtles?” I asked her.

“I like giraffes,” she shook her head.

We both looked at Armand.

“I like giraffes, too,” I admitted.

The men exhausted the reserves of small talk. “Say goodbye, pumpkin,” Walter touched his daughter’s shoulder. “Didn’t really plan to come here today,” he sounded apologetic again.

Armand stretched his giant paw to Keri. “It was a pleasure seeing you, young lady,” he said courteously.

“You too,” she grabbed his fingers and smiled radiantly.

“Well, um…” Walter started but realized he had no idea how to address me. “Have a nice day.”

“Thank you,” I chuckled.

When they left, I glanced at Armand. “So?”

“So… I’m out,” he shrugged.

“It’s just one guy.”

“Who knows everyone and their dog south of 110th street,” he sighed. “When are you moving in?”

“Next week,” I capitulated. “Are you… upset?”

“No, if I’m certain that you have a wholesome dinner every night, I’m not upset,” he smiled.

And well… I moved to his apartment next week, just like that. In the end, I didn’t need any movers, just packed my books and clothes into several boxes, hauled them into an Uber and traveled into a different life, where the plumbing didn’t have moss on it.

My lease didn’t expire until July, so, even though it didn’t make much financial sense, I decided to keep my place until then – know your way out before you go in, as they say. Armand and I were doing great, but we were moving fast, faster than we’d both thought it would go, and I liked having a back-up plan, just in case.

“‘Living with a person you love is as hard as to love a person you live with,’” he agreed. “I hope you won’t need it, but I’d probably do the same if I were you.”

We had a fight almost immediately. Ok, not so much a fight, but a disagreement, let’s say – when I arrived with all my boxes, I was shown to a guest room, and I strongly disagreed that I should sleep there.

“Timothée…”

“Armand…”

“I don’t want any misunderstanding,” he looked at me.

“There is no misunderstanding – we’re together and we should sleep together.”

“The circumstances as they are,” he folded his arms, “I’m afraid that you’ll feel pressured into doing something I seriously doubt you’re ready to do, and I don’t want any ambiguity here.”

“I’ve wanted to do this _something _for months now!”

“Then a little delay won’t kill you,” he patted my shoulder and lightly pushed me into the room.

“We’re lovers, right?” I looked at him gloomily.

“Right,” he nodded. “Up you go.” 

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a guest room, but his home office - right off the kitchen, neat, quaint – that on original floor plan was designated as “a maid’s room.” It amused me a lot when he told me, so I called myself Cinder Timmy just to fuck with him a bit and succeeded – he assured me immediately that he’d had people staying there before, though couldn’t help looking a bit guilty.

But it was that or Caro’s former room, and I understood why he couldn’t offer it to me. In truth, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there myself – it wouldn’t have felt right. Plus, this “maid’s room” was only slightly smaller than my room in my parents’ house, had a desk, a bed, a closet and even its own bathroom, because there’s nothing like peeing, I guess, to remind you that a classless society is a goal, not a reality.

It was nice, really, nothing shabby about it. Its only drawback was its distance from the master’s bedroom, but that was due to the layout of the apartment which was built with separating domestics from owners firmly in mind – as a result, two families could live here completely independently from each other, only crossing paths in the kitchen, if they absolutely had to.

The place itself was huge, comparing to what I’d been used to, and nowhere I felt it stronger than in the dining room. First night we had dinner there, I kept glancing at the door, thinking the Queen of England would stroll in at any moment. It was convenient for having guests, but when it was just the two of us, it was frankly daunting. I couldn’t believe he’d been eating here alone every night, but he didn’t think much of it. He was used to it: when his father was away, which was usually eleven months out of every year, because our economy has subsisted on war for the last century and some Vietnam was always available, he and his mother spent their evenings here. I couldn’t imagine what they were talking about – I was tongue-tied that first night.

Armand is a creature of habit, though, and discipline is a big thing for him, I was beginning to see. He isn’t exactly spontaneous, but rather glacial in his decisions and movements.

“Spontaneity is a synonym for messiness,” he’d tell you. “Good impromptu speech takes about three weeks to prepare.”

Insert an eye-roll. I usually do.

“Creativity is chaotic by nature,” I argue in vain.

“Aha. Is that why I’m finding congressional reports in the bathroom?”

It’s worse than living with your dad - it’s like living with your mom, I swear.

“If it wasn’t for the view, I’d have moved out long ago!”

“But you like the view,” he smirks and turns that luxurious backside to me.

And yeah, I like the view, no arguments here. I suspect the maintenance fee in the building rises every time he parades it around. Prime piece of real estate, this.

Still, discipline sucks. That’s what I was thinking when, on my first morning there, I walked into the kitchen, scratching my nuts and yawning widely, which is as much multitasking as I’m capable of at 7 a.m. Armand was standing at the counter in a fluffy white bathrobe, fresh as a fucking daisy, and one glance at him was enough to determine that he’d already gone for a run, taken a shower and was currently preparing breakfast for the two of us. The smell of freshly brewed coffee was wafting in the air.

“Jesus Christ…” I muttered.

“Good… morning?”

Yes, it sounded like a question. He looked at me standing there in my briefs, fondling myself, and it sounded like a question.

“Oh, fuck you,” I groaned and went back to wash up and brush my hair into some semblance of order, because it, too, looked as if I’d weathered a storm overnight, as it usually does.

Now, he’ll tell you it’s a Timothée-problem, and he is dead wrong here - it’s a generational one, and it’s much bigger than his ability to finish his to-do lists even on Sundays or my perpetual bewilderment at seeing this.

Let’s face it, life for his generation was easy. No, it was. Watergate was investigated, Nixon resigned, and Carter proclaimed “crisis of confidence” a crisis, meaning that something had to be done about it, meaning that it was important and people cared. America was better than this, they were assured and soon believed again, bouncing back and dousing brief disappointment with a solid dose of Reagan, who didn’t need an astrologist to see that in shining city upon a hill greed was good and welfare unnecessary.

They had War that had an enemy, a goal and a victory, and when Evil Empire was defeated, they partied hard, happy in their conviction that they made the world better. We were lied into two “conflicts” that we didn’t want and can’t end, and that fill us with shame every time another maimed child looks at us from the screen.

Iran-Contras was an embarrassment - Colin Powell selling his soul at the UN became an SNL sketch.

My Lai was an atrocity - Abu Ghraib turned into prime time news.

Savings and loan fiasco – more than a thousand bankers convicted; House market crash – no Wall Street executive even charged.

Existentialism for them was edgy and new, a fad, a strictly academic proposition. But for us? An appalled question, “What, life has no meaning?” is answered with a shrug, signifying old news: “Of course, it doesn’t. It’s up to you to invent one.” 

When religion fell apart, they embraced psychoanalysis and relaxed. We don’t have even that – by the time we arrived, it, too, had become a joke.

They wonder where Jimmy Hoffa is – we’d like to know where living wage is buried. And, yes, we’d love to run for help to their Bronsons and Eastwoods, but what can they do against our Jokers and Anton Chigurhs?

They figured out that personal is political – we were prompted to take a step further and accept that corporate can be spiritual. And while Nixon taught them that imperfection is a part of life and nothing to kill yourself over, we are constantly suggested that it must be overcome, by any means necessary. Only unlike them, who had only friends and neighbors for an audience gleefully expecting your failure, we have thousands and thousands on internet. So it’s not surprising that every one of us is slowly turning into a CEO of one’s own life, constantly optimizing, upgrading, airbrushing one’s existence, terrified of missing out, terrified of getting it wrong, terrified of being oneself, perpetually responsible to dozens of shareholding Facebook friends who are often less forgiving than JPMorgan Chase board of directors.

They had explanations, we inherited the questions. They were encouraged to have kids – we’re asked if we can afford them. They could merrily fight for cheap oil – we’re feeling the guilt over the climate change. They had a system – we have systemic problems. Their social mobility - our free fall. Their artists - our milkshake ducks.

_They_ are indifference sold as common sense: _“_If you got rid of every cop with vaguely racist leanings, then you'd have three cops left, and all o' them are gonna hate the fags, so what are ya gonna do, y'know?”

_We_ are hypocrisy on top of despair: “You can't say nigger-torturing no more. You gotta say persons-of-color-torturing.”

But you know what? There are moments when I fucking envy them, not because they had it all, but because they had something, while we’re left face to face with this unbearable lightness of being that keeps losing weight with every yesterday’s truth that turns into a WTF du jour: their Gatsby - floating in the pool, safe from knowing where the bullet came from; and ours – holistic and dry, but inescapably aware that green light was just a symbol. So don’t give me crap about my 401(k), when half of my tribe burns out by thirty.

“I want one too,” I declared, returning to the kitchen.

“What?” Armand smiled.

“The… this,” I picked at his bathrobe.

He left without a word, came back with another one, equally fluffy and white, and wrapped me in it. Momentarily, I felt like a dick, so I hugged him, burying my nose in his furry chest.

“Life is hard?” he chuckled.

I don’t know how he divined it from my behavior, but he sometimes does.

“It is,” I mumbled.

“You think a cupcake will make a difference?”

“I do.”

I got more than a cupcake – there was also Greek yogurt, fruit-and-nut mix, egg quesadilla and something he called “chia seeds” that I had to eat, because fiber. In short, if he wanted to impress me, he did. Meanwhile, looking at this cornucopia, I caught myself trying to calculate how much it all cost, and it made me sad because I realized that it’d become a standard practice for me: when there’s not enough money – everything is money, from a pack of gum to ten minutes in the park spent not working and feeling guilty about it.

Armand makes great coffee, by the way. Brews it in this cute Turkish coffee pot and was at first strongly opposed to my subsequent contamination it with cream, but gave up after a time. Eating in the dining room he gave up too, because I rebelled after three days, saying that constantly expecting Duke and Duchess of York being announced gave me indigestion. Of course, he tried this “I’ve been doing it for fifty years” bullshit at first, and I reminded him that he had a nice round table in the kitchen, where we could eat without anxiety, but if he didn’t want to, I’d dine there alone, which would be appropriate for someone living in the maid’s room. In other words, use and abuse your partner’s guilt to your heart’s content – it’s more profitable than biotech stock these days.

All in all, we transitioned smoothly into the living-together phase. Quickly and smoothly. I had a room, and a bathrobe, and nutritious chia seeds for breakfast, and it was all going great… then I told my mom about my changed living arrangements. I didn’t really want to, but I felt I had to, because she’s Mom and she could find out on her own through some wizardry, and it would’ve been hell to pay then, so I told her.

“What do you mean living together? How? Since when?” she was dumbfounded.

“Well, for about a week now. And how? I’d say… uneventfully,” I sighed.

In other words, I’m still a virgin where it now counts, so relax - I didn’t say that and I hoped she didn’t intuit it, but the sigh was very authentic.

“And you’re telling me just like that?”

“How do you want me to tell you?”

“I need to talk to him,” she said firmly.

“Talk to him?” I was surprised.

“Yes. What’s his name?”

“His name?”

“Why are you repeating everything?”

“Repeating?”

“Timothy!”

I scratched my head. “Armand.”

“He is rich?” she asked suspiciously.

“No, not really,” I had to admit to my chagrin. “Why?”

“That’s a rich name, Armand.”

“Rich name?” I chuckled. “Two of the wealthiest guys in this country are called Bill and Jeff.”

“I need to talk to your roommate.”

Roommate…

“But what are you going to talk to him about? There is nothing to talk about. You have nothing in common, trust me.”

“If my son is… is… we have plenty to talk about,” she huffed.

I started getting nervous. “This is invasion of my privacy,” I tried. “I’m an adult, you sh…”

“Armand what? What’s his last name?” she interrupted.

“You’re overreacting.”

“You haven’t seen me overreacting yet,” she replied ominously. “What’s his last name?”

“Johnson,” I blurted the first thing that came to mind.

“Johnson? Baby powder?”

“No, just Johnson, without the other one. A regular joe… Johnson. You have nothing to talk about. Please, leave him alone.”

She was quiet for a second. “I’m getting tired of this, Timothy, and I don’t like it one bit. Not one bit.”

“But what’s the problem?”

“The problem is that I don’t know what to expect from you anymore. One day you’re getting married, then you’re not getting married, then you’re that, then there is this… Johnson, out of nowhere…”

“Why out of nowhere?” I tried to stop her and failed.

“…out of nowhere… who knows who he is? And now you’re living together, and what’s next? These days I am scared to pick up the phone, because you might be calling to say that you’re moving to China or… or you’re already there!”

“I’m not in China!”

“I want to talk to this Johnson!”

“This is rid…”

“Three days, Timothy! He has the decency to call and talk to me within three days, or we’re coming to New York!”

“We?” I gaped.

“Yes, we. Your father isn’t a dummy, you know, and I’m tired of playing a James Bond in my own marriage, tired of all these secrets, and all. Have some consideration for your parents, for goodness’ sake!” she exclaimed.

“Mom…”

“Three days,” she repeated.

When I came home – because I already started calling it “home” – I found newly christened Mr. Johnson ass deep in the fireplace. It wasn’t burning – he was just cleaning it.

Yeah, we have a fireplace, and it’s real, not one of those electric types that every hillbilly can glue to a wall now. No, this one has some fire in it, demands special type of wood, costs a fortune to maintain, looks like a portal to Hogwarts, and if you want one too – tough luck, because Bill de Blasio banned them in 2014, which doesn’t stop me from roasting an occasional hot dog in ours - why else would you have one, right? Armand is fond of it, too, and diligently renews his subscription to _Harper’s Magazine_ “for kindling”: about twenty years ago they published some article he found particularly objectionable, and discipline is important, especially when it comes to grudges.

“We have a problem,” I said grimly.

He carefully pulled himself out and turned to me, all sooty nose and blinking eyes behind black-rim glasses, and oh my god, I fell in love again - the guy is like a micro heart attack, stealthy and dangerous: you haven’t had time to recover from chia seeds for breakfast, and he’s already wearing glasses to a fireplace.

(Don’t settle for less, though, kids, because L’Oréal was telling the truth and you’re worth it. All of it, Upper West Side included.)

“What problem?” Armand took off his glasses and checked the lenses against the light.

“My mom wants to talk to you, and I don’t know what to do,” I shook my head. “She gave me an ultimatum. She’s serious.”

“I’ll talk to her,” he shrugged. “Why…”

“You can’t!” I cried. “You can’t talk to her. Not now. No, you can’t talk to her!”

He looked at me quizzically. “She doesn’t know who I am,” he realized, “or… how old I am.”

“I’ll ask someone at work, I think,” I was musing aloud. “Yes, Scott probably. Won’t be difficult.”

He got up from the floor and walked towards me. “Out of the question.”

“Not the time for scrupulousness, Armand!”

“Time to be mature, though.”

“Go to hell!” I pushed away his hand. “Mature! I lied for you _for months_ because you couldn’t tell the truth to your daughter! For you! And now you… Can you imagine what my mother will think? She’ll probably… She’ll tell my father, and he… God, I have no idea how he’ll react. We’ve never… You have no right!” I pushed him away again. “You have no right! I did everything… You want to tell my mom like that? Over the phone? I may lose my parents, do you fucking understand that?!”

He stood close but didn’t try to touch me anymore. “If you ask someone to impersonate me, it’ll be worse,” he said quietly. “In the long run, it’ll be worse. Everything you want to avoid will happen then – when they find out, your parents will be convinced that I’m an old lecher who manipulated you through god knows what means. If we want to resolve it more or less peacefully…” he paused and became thoughtful. “I’ll do whatever you ask, if you tell me now that you’re not here for a long haul.”

“What do you mean?”

He hesitated then touched my cheek lightly. “Let me talk to your mother…”

“No!” I stepped back. “No! She has no idea… She’ll imagine the worst…”

“She’s your mother,” he smiled gently, “she’s already imagining the worst. That’s our default setting from the moment you’re born.”

“Don’t you use the parent card on me,” my eyes narrowed. “Don’t!”

“You’re dating a parent, get used t…”

“Caro knows that I’m living here?”

“Yes, she does.”

“She does?” I stared.

“She does.”

“And?”

“And… she didn’t expect anything better from me at this point,” he said and it sounded like a quote.

“Sorry…”

“Dale tiempo al tiempo, as Lupe would say,” he shrugged.

We looked at each other, and after a moment I reached out my hand to him. “I can’t lose my parents, and I can’t lose you.”

He stroked my palm. “You’ll never lose your parents. We can forgive anything – default setting.”

“Skillfully dodged,” I nodded.

We agreed that he’d call her after dinner, and I spent it imagining my mother’s voice: “Excuse me, how old are you, Mr. Johnson?”

“Look, if you soften your voice a bit, just a bit, I don’t mean nuts-in-a-vice level, but… well, you know what I mean, just a bit…”

He gave me an amused look. “I could inhale some helium…”

“What did you sound like when you were thirty?”

“Same. It’s been all downhill since puberty, I’m afraid.”

I put down the fork and covered my face with my hands. “Why didn’t I see it coming? Why? She is… Well, no,” I peeked at him through my fingers, “no, she’s never been like this. She’s always trusted me, and now…”

“She’s just worried, Timothée.”

“Because I’m gay,” I nodded bitterly. “Don’t give me this look. It’s because of that. If you were a girl, she wouldn’t give a damn.”

“If I were a 50-year-old girl, she would,” he chuckled.

“Do you believe in God?” I asked, not sure where it came from, but suddenly interested.

“No, but I’m afraid of Him,” he smiled. “Why?”

“Because…” I looked down, “because of what we’re doing.”

He was silent. I stole a glance at him and saw him staring into space. “Facetious answer would be, He doesn’t care what people do in their bedrooms,” he said slowly. “I can’t give you absolution, if you’re asking for that. If you take the Bible seriously, you know you’re going to hell.”

That… wasn’t what I was expecting, at all, and my face probably reflected that.

“I can’t help you. It used to be: you love a man – you lose the God. There was a price, and it was cruel, and those who couldn’t pay ended up swallowing their gun or slashing their throat. But the choice made you stronger, no one would say you weren’t man enough, because they knew it took balls to lose God.

“Now… to spare you the discomfort, all those loopholes have been invented – hell probation, heaven plea bargain. Il pardonnnera, c’est son métier, basically. Compromise was suggested, and compromise… bred intellectual and spiritual mediocrity en masse.

“These days, you’ll find people squabbling over translations of certain words, others pointing to a political or demographical interpretation, still others crying that it’s hypocritical to follow some of those rules and not others, but the truth is if you take the Bible seriously, there’s not much room for maneuver - what we’re doing is wrong, and there will be punishment.”

So, yeah, discipline and words that matter, and all that. I don’t know what he was like at twenty-five, but he’s not anymore, and “move fast and break things” motto of my generation gives him pause, even when it comes to making his life easier.

“Do you think it’s wrong? Us?”

“No.”

I chewed my lip, thinking. “Is that why you won’t sleep with me? Because you think I might… repent?”

He shook his head and laughed silently. “I won’t sleep with you, because you look a bit stunned every time I kiss you, not out of consideration for your immortal soul.”

“I don’t look st…”

He leaned over the table and kissed me.

“That’s not fair!” I cried. “That’s so not fair! I wasn’t ready!”

“My point exactly,” he nodded. “Ok, let’s finish dinner, and I’ll call your mom.”

I picked at my lasagna. “She’ll call you Mr. Johnson.”

He paused and gave me another long-suffering look. “And why is that?”

“Because she knows Caro’s last name,” I huffed. “Look, you can tell her you’re fifty, I’ll deal with that later, but… the other stuff, no. Just no. She’s still thinking of you as my father-in-law, for fuck’s sake – she’ll have a heart attack. No! Use your mighty brain and cook this omelet without breaking any eggs for me, please.”

“You don’t as…”

I leaned over the table and kissed him.

“And just look at you now,” I smirked. “I wonder who’ll be more stunned if I turn up naked in your bed.”

“More wine?” he licked his lips.

“Yes, thank you.”

Later, I was sitting cross-legged on the carpet at his feet, while he was dialing, ready to snatch the phone out of his hand at the first signs of trouble.

“Mrs. Chalamet?”

I don’t know how seriously I take the Bible, but I pray. Though, as a lot of people, only when it suits me, i.e. when I need something delivered from upstairs. Right then I needed my mom to be perfectly ok that I was shagging some Mr. Johnson whom she’d never seen and who sounded like men forty years after puberty do.

“This is Armand…”

Jesus, I closed my eyes, if you’re listening…

“Hello?”

I opened my eyes. He shrugged in response to my questioning look.

“Oh, yes, sure… Sit,” he hissed and pushed me back to the floor. “Sit.”

“No,” he chuckled, “not a dog, it’s your son… Yes, here… Well, I do exist, yes…” He was silent and I didn’t hear anything from the phone. Then she said something that I didn’t catch. “I don’t know the proper procedure here, either,” Armand smiled. “I understand your concern, though. I do, better than you probably imagine. It must have been difficult for you, especially with him being so far away… My parents are… My mother is dead… Cancer… Thank you… No, it’s… Well, the truth is, I have my own place and it made sense financially for Timothée… Yes, thin as a rail,” he smirked, touching my cheek. I bit his finger and he winced, rubbing it. “Yes, he can be, but there is a very nice boy underneath it all. Thanks to you, I’m sure…”

Oh, yes, it was as embarrassing as that. I’d spent less aggravating minutes while my school principal was detailing to my mom how he caught me and Jerry Peters pissing out of the third-floor window for reasons I can’t even remember now.

“I’m an editor,” Armand continued. “No, we don’t work together. Fiction… Literary fiction, for lack of better word,” he chuckled. “True, but you should be proud of him, not an easy job and he’s under a lot of pressure constantly…”

And so on and so forth. Ten minutes later he offered my mom to join their ARC list. Not the Association for Retarded Citizens, he explained helpfully, Advanced Reading Copy. Did she want some books for free, month or two before they hit the stores? She did, it turned out. She also wanted to know our address, together with his cell and landline phone numbers, and he dictated it to her without blinking.

I felt foolish. What was I so worried about? They got along splendidly, in no time. And it’s only because she couldn’t imagine she was talking with someone her age that she didn’t pick up on an obvious thing – that she was speaking with another parent. But that’s Armand’s primary occupation, and though I regularly give him hell and put him in his place, he can’t help dragging it into our relationship from time to time. He’s simply got used to it, and I didn’t see how much until we started living together.

He is de facto and de jure the head of his family now. For example, they are long divorced with Liza, but he has the general power of attorney over her estate, because, after they finished dividing every plate and pillowcase they commonly owned, she promptly signed the papers to appoint him as such. Why she did it, I guess, I can understand – he’s trustworthy and he is doing it for free; why he agreed is another matter. Still, if you see him circling the couch in the living room, one head to his forehead, muttering something into the phone, it means he’s arguing with Liza – again - probably over something she should’ve done herself and completely forgot about, and now there is a fee, and he’s somehow to blame.

I’d have washed my hands and walked away long ago. Not him, mostly because he was taught that you have to take care of “your women.” (Yeah, try saying that on a date today…) And let me tell you, for a gay guy, he has quite a lot of women, because besides Liza and Caro, there is also Jessica, who theoretically has his father if she’s tempted to play a damsel in distress, but who knows she can always call Armand and does; and there is Lupe, too, his housekeeper, with whom he has a history - not salacious in nature, but a history still - who happily designated him as her next of kin for all things morbid and who has two daughters, Monica and Isabel, both thinking that “Don Armando es estupendo,” and no wonder when he helped one to get into college in the States and posted bail for the other, when she was caught nicking panties from Target.

At the same time, his father thinks he’s a quitter, Caro considers him a doormat and Liza regularly accuses him of selfishness, while he tries to keep them all out of trouble and in the black. He is not rich, but he kinda has to be - there is this huge apartment he can barely afford, there is his father’s house in Maine and there’s Caro’s place in the city, for which he’s paying, too, as I found out later. So, if not nose deep in another manuscript or fireplace, Armand is usually on the phone with his broker, trying to figure out how to pay for the law school his daughter is constantly threatening to go to, or to compensate the IRS for another piece of art his father bought on the sly and conveniently forgot to declare twenty years ago.

And then there’s me. I need to be taken care of, too, because I’m from the generation that’s been taught all about freedom and nothing about responsibility, can spot a case of cultural appropriation a mile away, but can’t read a road map to get to Connecticut. His words, not mine, and all of them bullshit - I could care less about Connecticut, but would have no problem dressing up as geisha for Halloween. Still, I have to be managed somehow, for I am cute but hazardous. Like a shih tzu, only more resource-intensive.

Having said all that, Armand’s busy life has its perks, too. The biggest, in my opinion, is the inordinate supplies of Mexican food in his fridge, thanks to Lupe, who comes two times a week but cooks for two weeks in advance every time. If that dreaded day after tomorrow ever comes and it’s total war on the streets, we’ll survive for a looong time, before each other’s flesh starts looking tasty. We have so much of the stuff, I sometimes bring it to work to feed my fellow starving writers.

Another blessing, which can be a curse, is that same family. Because no matter how scattered all over the map they are, they are still very much present in each other’s lives and in matter of seconds can regroup and close ranks against any perceived alien threat, which for a time was me. For example, at some point I caught wind of Caro being suddenly and inexplicably preoccupied that her father might spend all his money on me - including gifting me this posh apartment that, in truth, I have no desire to own - and leave her without a penny. Nothing much came out of it, but there were a lot of hushed conversations and a visit to a will attorney to pacify the populace. On the other hand, when I was looking for a source in Silicon Valley, Liza helped me through Richard, and when Armand needs a legal advice he calls his daughter, who, if she doesn’t know the answer herself, usually connects him with a friend of hers who does. So, that’s family too.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here, because in May of 2017 none of it yet happened and I was still sleeping in the maid’s room, well-fed but involuntary celibate. Then Armand bragged that he could dance rumba.

“You dance with your vacuum cleaner?” I laughed.

He got pissed. Like, really pissed. I touched the nerve I didn’t know existed – my man could dance, and instead of being beside myself with admiration I couldn’t even tell what this damn rumba was.

Now, a couple words about it – rumba is the gayest thing in existence. It’s worse than five rows of pillows and a fuchsia bedspread. It’s one of the things John Wayne would have shot you for, in character and out of it. It’s hot as fuck. If you watch Dancing with the Stars, it’s mostly acrobatics; if you do it with Armand, it’s mostly sex. His own mother sent him to a dance school in her time, and I don’t know what she wanted to get out of it, but Armand got a shapely butt and a fling with his instructor. Because, of course.

Half an hour after my unfortunate remark, there was a knock on my door and Armand behind it, all in black.

“We’re robbing a bank?” I smiled nervously.

“We’re dancing,” he said curtly and yanked me out of my sanctuary.

The living room floor was cleared and some slow Spanish tune was playing.

“Now, let’s not go to extremes here,” I looked around. “I’m not exactly…”

“We’ll start slow,” he interrupted. “You seem flexible.”

“I am not,” I got really scared then. “I am really not. I can’t scratch my ass without straining a muscle.”

He ignored me, walked a couple of steps, turned around and faced me. “Simply follow my movements.”

“Wh…”

Suddenly he spread his arms, and a smooth wave went through his body – from fingertips to fingertips. He started walking towards me.

“Please, no…”

“Arms!”

“I…”

“Like this. After me. Work your shoulders. Shoulders!”

He looked good, it must be said. I looked like one of those inflatable tube men, flailing in front of your average 7-11, only in slow-mo.

“Good,” he pursed his lips. “Now hips.”

“Hi…”

He grabbed my hips and started rolling them slowly. “Look at me.”

I did, and was completely useless after that. Because, Jesus… If we ever go broke, I’ll send him to the nearest cabaret for a quick buck – I’m sure there’ll be a lot of people willing to pay to see those hips swaying slowly.

“Eyes on me,” he said sternly. “Shoulders steady and… bend your knees… don’t squat! Bend, slightly… Yes… To the right… To the left… Come on, show me what you’ve got! You have to seduce me!”

“I do?”

“You do. With hips.”

“Well…”

“Leg outstretched… not this one… left… no, not this one… yes… come closer… Hips! Move your hips!”

“I can’t move and… and walk…”

“Again! After me… closer… hook your leg behind my knee… not this one… not this knee… yes… ready?”

“No!!!”

Suddenly my forehead was two inches from the floor, chest arched to the ceiling, and I heard my every vertebra pop, from my ass to my neck, in a rising wave of shock.

“God almighty…”

He lifted me up slowly and ran his hand over my spine. “You’re fine. Turn around.”

I did and basically fell on his hard-on.

“Easy now,” he murmured, put his hands on my hips and began rocking them slowly from side to side, in synchrony with his.

There was movement in his pants, and I shivered. “It’s working?”

“Oh, it is,” he chuckled, lowering his chin on my shoulder, so that every word ran over my skin and left a trail of goosebumps.

His hands traveled from my hips to my ass, appreciatively; I felt him nibbling on my earlobe, arched my neck and moaned.

“Good,” he whispered. “Don’t let me catch you, keep me thirsty.”

“I don’t…”

“Turn around.”

We faced each other. My cheeks on fire, his eyes sparkling. “Move away,” his nostrils flared, “evade. Lure me in. Slowly. Hips. That’s it, kitten. Slowly. Don’t look away. Never look away.”

I got the gist of it, more or less, spread my arms and tried to imitate his graceful wave. He smiled and started approaching, so I retreated, and retreated, and retreated, until…

“Gotcha,” he wiggled his brows, and used his whole body to press and spread me against the wall. His palms ran over my flaming cheeks, slid down my chest and sneaked under my butt – a moment later I was lifted up and could do nothing but throw my arms around his neck, locking my ankles at the small of his back.

I’d never been held like this in my adult life, and the force in his body shocked me for a moment. It was a new unnerving sensation, the knowledge that your partner for the first time in your life is stronger than you. He seemed all muscle, nothing soft anywhere. Broad shoulders, broad back, on a purely instinctive level his size intimidated me.

Physically, I didn’t know how to love him, and he understood it better than me. An image of the two of us in bed like this flashed in my mind, and I felt vague embarrassment that I couldn’t control or explain. And then the realization that one day my father would know that I was doing this - what I was doing and how – hit me, and everything inside me shrunk with shame.

“Why can’t you look at me?” Armand asked quietly.

“I feel foolish,” I muttered.

“Are you afraid?”

“Please, let me go.”

He carefully put me down and took a step back. “I wasn’t going to…”

“I’m ok,” I made myself look at him and tried to smile. “I’m ok, really. It’s just… Do men…”

“What?”

“Do men look at you differently when… Your friends and… When they know, do they… They do, right?” I glanced at him.

“Yes.”

“Even today?”

“Even today.”

I nodded. “I didn’t think it mattered…”

“But it does,” he touched my cheek.

“It does. I’m not afraid,” I returned to his question, “I’m just… I can’t help wanting that no one knew… I don’t want to be in the closet, I only… Doesn’t make sense, I understand…”

“If it didn’t, closets wouldn’t exist,” he replied sadly.

Next day was awkward. He kissed my cheek at breakfast, and that was it. He thought he pushed me too far, I was embarrassed over my embarrassment – it was a mess, frankly. I came to work and spent three hours writing three paragraphs, then resorted to typing “All work and no play…” over and over again, and by lunch time was on the verge of splintering some doors with an ax, because I felt angry and stupid, and something was gonna give, and something did.

I stood up and marched to Stanley’s office.

“You have a minute?” I asked, after barging in.

He looked at me tiredly – he always look tired, no matter the time of the day – and gestured something that could be generously translated as “sure,” but was probably “not you again” in reality.

“I’m gay and I’m dating an old guy,” I said quickly, and we stared at each other.

He blinked first, and repeatedly. “I thought you were married…”

“I was going to. I’m not anymore. In fact, I’m dating her father now. I’m going to marry her father. One day. Some day.”

“Christ,” he rubbed his forehead, “the rate at which people are losing their minds in this city is phenomenal. So you what, chose me as your emotional support animal?”

“Well, yes. Sort of. You see, the trouble is I can’t get over what people might think. I believed it didn’t matter, but it does, and now we’re sort of stuck, and I needed to tell someone, just to get it over with, to see the reaction,” I paused to breathe. “What’s your reaction?”

“I’m an old school about these things, Chalamet.”

I nodded. “You think it’s a sin.”

“I don’t give a damn,” he deadpanned.

“Really?”

“Without a doubt,” he sighed. “Look, the way things are going, we can be at war with Russia in six months, which this planet won’t survive, so - marry your father, who cares?”

“I’m not going to marry my father!”

“After two divorces, you’ll probably think you should’ve – I hated my old man, but no one understood me better,” he clicked his tongue. “No one.”

“This is weird…”

“Tell you what,” he leaned closer and lowered his voice, “Baxter Street, behind the Rastafarian church – best colonic cleansing in the city. Like a shrink, only better. You’ll feel like a new man. Here,” he gave me a pen, “there is a gift after five visits.”

“Thanks,” I took it gingerly.

“You have a future in this paper,” he declared suddenly, reclining back in his chair.

“I do?”

“You do. Clear your mind and everything, and start making a name for yourself. Only get rid of all those Es at the end – the country hasn’t recovered from Shia Labeouf yet, for fuck’s sake, and here you are.”

“I… Thank you, Stanley. For the pen, too.” 

“Don’t mention it.”

At home, it was still cloudy with a promise of heavy rain on the horizon. Armand heated up dinner for us, and we were eating it in silence. I noticed him glancing at me a couple of times and frowning, but he didn’t say anything, and I began to hope that maybe we’d get over it without any additional soul-searching or gut-cleansing.

No such luck.

“Sex isn’t the essence of intimacy, Timothée,” he said carefully. “Many couples are perfectly satisfied with emotional connection alone. I have no problem with us being such a couple, I want you to know it.”

I wanted to bash my head through the table.

“So, you turned your life upside down for what? To get a roommate?”

“You’re not just a piece of ass to me,” he replied calmly.

I nodded. The way of such noble bullshit lie mutual deception and misery. If we couldn’t be intimate, while one of us wanted it and the other didn’t, we’d better just part ways immediately. Lovers forgive a lot, but they rarely forgive their sacrifices. Sacrifice is a loss, and in the back of your mind, you write it off as a debt, someone’s debt to you, and while it may be divine, it’s almost superhuman to love your debtors.

Besides, Stanley did help me to clear my mind.

No time like now, I decided, pushed his plate to the side and climbed on the table – because what’s left of American dream is _Pretty Woman_ that merrily teaches you that spreading your legs ain’t enough no more, timing and Richard Gere are paramount; and well, I had me a Richard here.

I balanced my heels on the armrests of his chair and gave him a moment to take in the view.

“Timothée…”

“My eyes are up here, concentrate now,” I suggested, and he looked up. “Good. Now, we aren’t meant to be friends, Armand. Some people just aren’t. Some people are meant to fuck each other, you know? And, for better or worse, we are among those people. Why, I have no idea - maybe it’s a miracle. A fucking miracle, so to speak. You with me?”

“Timothée…”

“Good,” I nodded. “The other thing is – I’m not going to waste my life on someone’s good opinion. Even that of my father. I’m petrified what he’ll say or think, true, but I don’t have another life, I only have this one, and I’d very much like to get some action in this one.”

He seemed like he was following. The trouble was, I wasn’t sure how to continue.

“I… There are things that I… well, I want to do them, I mean, I’ve fantasized about doing them… with you… but I… Hell, what do you want from me, if I’ve never done them before?” I glared at him. “I’m freaked out a bit, ok? I’ve never even touched another dick in my life! So what? Is it now a crime? Punished by eternal celibacy?”

There was a smile in his eyes that I didn’t like, because I was making an important point here and he was looking at me as if I was something silly and adorable.

“Stop it right now,” I warned him. “We’re discussing some deep stuff here - and you’re grinning like an idiot!”

Instead of replying, he put his arms around me and pulled me towards to him. I grabbed the edge of the table, already feeling the pain of my coccyx meeting his stone floor at the speed of free fall.

“I’m breakable,” I reminded him.

“I want to kiss you.”

I hesitantly let go of the table and clutched his shoulders. “You may.”

“May I?” he stroked my thigh slowly, up and down, up and down.

“You may,” I leaned down, tip of my nose touching his. “You may…”

I was prepared for a gentle peck, instead he suddenly got up, grabbed my ass and got me sprawled on the table in front of him.

“God, you’re something…” he mumbled, covering me with his body, and both me and the table sighed under his weight.

I didn’t hear anything for a long time, then one of the plates crashed on the floor, because I was blindly searching for something to grab and probably knocked it off. It didn’t stop up us, didn’t even make us pause. My neck turned red from his teeth, my cock was crying. I wouldn’t want another mouth after that, I thought, not after that… I wouldn’t accept another tongue… Different hands would be a compromise…

If you die, I wanted to tell him, the gravity will die, scattering the solar system of my life like billiard into darkness; time will be no more, light will be no more… How scary that I know it already, while you’re still here, pressing me into the kitchen table, gulping my breaths. But how wonderful that you exist at all, how wonderful! When it’s all relative and up in the air, how wonderful that you have shape and weight and substance, my ground zero, my ultima Thule…

Next day was Saturday, I think, and we were going to see a movie, walk around the city, have dinner somewhere. We didn’t. We spent it on the floor in the living room, kissing until our lips hurt. I don’t remember the date, but I remember the moment, this whole day as a moment, as a kiss: looking up, seeing his eyes, drowning in blue. I remember the whispers, I remember the carpet beneath my palms, I remember how young he looked - overnight, almost boyish. I remember I forgot my age.

I just don’t remember the date. I forgot to remember it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you. Even if reading this was a dissapointment, writing it wouldn't have been possible without you - I owe you, thank you.
> 
> Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones!


	15. Chapter 15

Summer. It is summer, I’m in love.

Again.

This time with her father.

We are on the Brooklyn Bridge, he is reciting Whitman to me. New York is Whitman, he says, you can’t love it without loving him. Here, he points to the Lower Manhattan, that’s where it all started, with the Dutch. New Amsterdam. And there, that’s where Washington’s army fled from what used to be Breuckelen, when our first president realized they were outnumbered by the British.

Bronx was Bronck’s settlement, out of Kings and Queens only Queens remains, Manhattan is what native tribes called it. New York is a city of buried history, a place of becoming something else. 

We still haven’t figured out how to hold hands in public, so we still don’t. During winter, I used to slip my hand into the pocket of his coat, find his hand there, brush his palm, but it’s summer, he’s wearing a blazer, so I can’t do it. Instead I wrap my arms around him and he puts his chin on the top of my head, presses me closer. For a moment, I remember that less than a year ago I was standing here with his daughter, and then I forget. To understand is to experience, I begin to understand New York while retracing its steps.

I kiss his neck discreetly. “Take me home. I miss you so much…”

I do. Constantly. I can’t get enough, it’s those first days of passion when everything is white hot, every kiss, every touch, every look. He is better at controlling it, but still powerless in the face of that relentless hunger we feel for each other.

Dark hallway, he’s just closed the door behind us, I raise my eyes to him, probably slightly manic, and he takes my throat and draws me to the wall. That’s the beginning, we won’t get past the living room after that, we’ll be on the floor again. His huge body hovering over me… God, he’s so big, it surprises me every time, I can’t help it. I shudder, hot seismic wave traveling from my toes to my hair roots. Every time…

I’m shy. Still. Too many things I don’t know how to do. I don’t know how to open my legs for him, I’m not used to it. He knows, but doesn’t give me the pep talk, lets me blush and look away, distracts me with kisses. He is a swimmer, every kiss is a gulp, of air, of life. Deep, long, breathtaking kisses. A thousand kisses deep, I remember. A thousand… Yes, that’s how it feels. Every time. 

It’s on that floor that he invents the thing I hate and love, hate and love to oblivion. No, he didn’t invent it, that’s not true – every teenager would know the trick, but I was a teenager dry-humping on his parents’ couch, and I know the difference. Before, I could enjoy it, now it drives me mad. He leans closer, takes my head in his hands and starts moving slowly, slowly, his hot hard cock straining his pants. Like a tide, like waves, it comes and recedes, and I’m clawing his shoulders, writhing under him, I’m begging… Faster… I want to feel you… Take it all off… I want to…

His forehead touches mine, and he smiles. Enjoy. Feel it. Enjoy, he whispers. I don’t know how, I cry. Please… please… It’s not sex, I whine, I want the real thing.

“How young you are,” he smiles. “How silly…”

My head between his palms, he watches me come. I want it to last longer, but I can’t. I don’t know yet how to give him more time. This, too, embarrasses me, makes me blush. I don’t think I’ve ever blushed this much in my life, and if he didn’t love it, I would try to find a way to stop it. But he does.

He loves everything about me. It’s a heady, dizzying feeling, something I’ve never experienced before. Some of his orgasms sound like trees being uprooted, muted cry torn out of his very core, and in those moments I realize he’s breakable, too. It stuns me, the things I can do to him, how helpless he is in my arms, so big and so helpless.

Two out of every three nights, I end up on the table in the kitchen. We’re creating our own traditions, our own private rituals; we’re inventing the jokes that wouldn’t mean anything to an outsider. We’re building the intimacy, full of secret smiles and earthy smells. I can feel my pulse in my swollen lips, I’m starting to learn every pattern of the kitchen ceiling. Later, in bed, I have no dreams, sleep comes like a faint – I fall faster than you fall from a bridge, deeper. I would miss him in dreams, too, but I have none, so the nights are bearable.

Look at us – small Brazilian restaurant, floating yellow candle, long pale fingers stroking the stem of a fork. I can’t tear my eyes away – I know how each of them tastes by now. Karazhe, he says, or something like that; you should try it, it has a history. Every cuisine, every dish has a history; except fast food, apotheosis of facelessness, our gift to the world. We excel at erasing meaning, he laments.

“You love teaching me things.”

“Yes,” he smiles. “I can’t help it.”

The waitress takes me for his son, and he doesn’t bother to correct her. Are you upset? I ask him later. He says that he isn’t, and I know he lies. By now, I know. At home, imprinted into the couch by his body, I make him forget that we’re from different planets. I don’t want him distracted by ghosts, life’s too short to think about time, to waste it on things you can’t change. I kiss him into oblivion, I’ve learned some tricks along the way, too.

He’s never felt so young, I’ve never been so grown up. The world where our paths don’t cross is impossible, unthinkable. So soon, I can’t imagine not being lifted up and pinned to the wall, can’t imagine licking a neck and smelling different perfume, can’t imagine not feeling a pulsing cock against my stomach. Holding on to his broad back, for dear life, so soon I can’t imagine it never happening to me.

And then… we are dancing. His excuse - I’m leading a sedentary lifestyle and never exercise. Sedentary? I protest. I’ve had three interviews today in three different parts of the city, my feet are numb from all the walking… But I don’t argue for long because it’s not about exercise or lifestyle, it’s not even about the dance, it’s just desire set to music.

“My hips aren’t made for rumba…”

“Your hips,” his nostrils flare, “are made for everything.”

So I dance. With him, but more and more for him. There’s not much to it, really – make him chase you, make him want you, don’t let him touch you, don’t let him catch you. Promise, promise, promise – as soon as he believes it, he’s yours.

The oldest con game in the world, dancing. I would love it, if I didn’t know that someone else taught him all the moves. Jealousy makes me cruel, makes me better – I press my back to his chest, grab his ass and let him feel it. I exorcise his shadows with my hips, grind his doubts into dust. Mix of Cuba and Africa, Santería and voudon – rumba is bloody, languorous passion, an invitation to sin, a sultry smirking promise, a confession not meant to be heard by a padre.

We dance. No future, no past – when you fight time, those are the first casualties. The moment stretches, encapsulates us, helps him forget that he and his daughter are now sharing a lover.

I find a family album among his books. It’s tempting to peek inside and gorge myself on his pre-me history, but I ask him first – there is a fine line between intimacy and intrusion, and I know I shouldn’t cross it. He shrugs, yes, I may look; but he doesn’t join me.

I sit by the window in the living room and open it carefully. Mr. and Mrs. Hammer look back at me from the 60s. She seems a lot younger than him, fifteen years or so. Platinum blonde, shoulder-length bob with a bubble flip, light blue skirt suit with big pearl buttons - they are still not over Jack and Jackie, already having smelled the blood, and yet not ready for Vietnam and the crash of the decade.

He is standing behind her chair, one hand on her shoulder, some sort of military jacket that I don’t recognize, short brown hair, wiry, medium height, eyes full of boredom and knowledge, that almost smile on his lips that his son will inherit.

She looks a bit sad, or maybe I’m imagining it. I know nothing about her, only that she wanted her son to dance and get married, that her womb killed her, that she probably used to sit on that same windowsill I’m sitting on now. Armand has her eyes, it’s more apparent on the photos where they are together – same setting, only now he takes the place of the father, who’s probably an ocean away, collecting memories of war.

Armand is… young. My god, how young he is. Fourteen, sixteen, twenty… From a hippie to a yuppie with some bell-bottoms thrown in the mix. Twenty and then – nothing, years worth of silent parenthesis, and suddenly his wedding.

Here is one of those pictures that betray more secrets than everyone in it intended to divulge. There are the four of them, no sight of Liza’s parents. His father looks at his new daughter-in-law the way men appreciative of female beauty can’t help looking at women, even those married to their sons. His mother’s face is stony, lips pursed. “We didn’t send you to Yale to marry a waitress!” I hear her saying. But what a waitress! Cut of Liza’s dress highlights every curve a woman used to be told could make or break her fortune, and Liza is very fortunate, indeed. She looks up at her husband, desperately, fragilely happy, and he stares at the camera.

I know her look, I’ve seen it already, right here, on Estelle – the women who love him resemble each other: determination and a shadow of defeat on their faces. He is too handsome to be believed, and he can’t help breaking their hearts, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary. I know about two, but there must have been others: different clothes, similar faces, similar endings. Time after time, they kept losing him to the ghosts you won’t find in family albums.

The one that’s left is slipping away right now. Caro. His daughter. I keep turning pages and realize how much he must be missing her – she is everywhere here: a tiny white bundle in his arms, a laughing toddler on his shoulders, a little girl in a pirate costume piercing his side with her cutlass. They are in front of a fountain, she makes a face and laughs at the camera, and he looks at her, the only woman in his life who could make him forget that the world existed. His child, his never healing wound… I didn’t understand it, until I opened that album. 

I heard him speaking on the phone with her. I think it was her. His voice was softer, not yet pleading, but almost there. A question – short silence, a question – short silence: the unmistakable rhythm of a conversation full of monosyllabic replies. 

I don’t know what to do about Caro. I don’t know how to make her understand. I believe she’s jealous – all her life she’s had him all to herself, and now there is that other side of him she never knew existed, all those shadows she must now realize were there all along, hiding behind family picnics. He never loved her mother, not the way he should’ve, and she’s sure that this betrayal touches her too, and she won’t grasp the truth until she has her own children.

I want to talk to her, but I have nothing to say. “He’ll never love me like he loves you,” would sound about right, but I doubt she’ll listen. They are both stubborn and proud: whatever she expects him to do, he can’t oblige. And if it’s an apology she’s waiting for, he won’t ask for it, even from his daughter.

The price, I remember, you’re paying for every ounce of freedom you get. He doesn’t believe in happiness free of charge, I suspect; he’ll go on carrying this load as his due, will keep calling and accepting short cutting replies, will keep staring at his phone long after she hangs up.

Discipline is more than two cigarettes a year, it’s a heavy heart but an even pulse; a bullet in your chest and unshakeable diction. He’s missing her terribly, but the die is cast, and begging isn’t something his father would approve of.

The summer is gaining steam. I terminate the lease on my apartment, and in a bout of generosity leave my small heater there, for some future tenant who’ll probably need it during winter. My mom avoids mentioning “Mr. Johnson” in our conversations, as if he’s that unfortunate incident that happened during Easter, something you can’t change but can at least ignore.

“What if I’m ruining my parents’ marriage?” I ask him, though it’s not a question in my mind, but a fear I can’t suppress. “When my father finds out… He’ll know that she knew. What if…”

“After twenty-five years together, your mother knows your father better than you ever will,” he replies. “I think she knows what she’s doing.”

“I don’t know how to tell him,” I climb on his lap and curl up there. “I don’t think we really understand each other. Not anymore. He never seems pleased no matter what I do… I don’t think journalism is a real profession to him.”

“And it hurts?” he strokes my back.

“It hurts,” I acknowledge. “He believes in results, in doing something… real. He’s helping people every day, he makes a difference - and I’m chasing politicians few people have heard of for quotes no one will remember. He can’t respect that.”

“One day you may stumble upon…”

“What about your father?” I interrupt him.

He chuckles. “At some point I realized that he is a selfish prick. It became easier after that.”

I stare. He sighs. “My dad is from the generation who bragged about not being family types and married anyway; after that, it was basically Tolstoy – a woman is a stone around your neck that keeps you from accomplishing anything of substance… Didn’t stop him from fucking everything that had breasts and breathed, though,” he snorts softly. “And he’s a great man. Maybe the bravest man I know. Difficult to love and impossible not to. I came to terms with it, after a while.”

Armand is ticklish, I discover. I could let it go, but it’s too good a weapon not to use, and here we are – his face red from swallowed laughter, he’s trying to protect his sides and I’m merciless, triumphantly straddling my fallen giant. It is probably July, all our windows are open to the night, and the city is boiling with lights outside. I brush back his hair and feel moisture on his skin. He’s hot as a furnace under me. I lean forward, let him lick the sweat from my temples.

“How about a shower?” he whispers.

“Oh, yes…” I moan.

Wait, you mean…

Yes, he means together.

I would’ve been nervous only a month ago, but now I smile. His bathroom is bigger than the living room in my parents’ house. Besides the shower, there is also a bathtub, no legs so it looks like a huge ceramic bowl. Terracota tiles on the floor and matching mosaic on the walls, two sinks, a cabinet full of fluffy towels, but the part that impresses me the most every time I see it is the curtains - heavy velvet drapes hugging the alcove the bathtub stands in. 

He takes off his t-shirt, I follow. He disposes of his pants, I do the same. We are standing in front of each other, drinking in the sight of our bodies. He’s toned, but I notice the pockets of skin that no amount of exercise will stop from slightly sagging now. I look down at my own pale body – no matter what or how much he feeds me, I’m still as thin as a fishing rod, my chest embarrassingly hairless where his is covered with a carpet of thick curling hairs, turning white.

He shrugs. I shrug.

It’s so simple, really, the two of us. Whatever anyone may say or think, it’s so simple at its core.

He sets the shower to rainfall, and for a long time we’re standing there, hidden behind the curtain of water. His embrace is solid like a fortress, and I can’t stop smiling because I always knew it would happen, I always knew… I don’t blush when he gets on his knees and starts kissing my stomach.

“Careful with you head,” he looks up.

“My head?”

He takes me in his mouth, and I throw my head back, banging it against the wall, and curse quietly.

“Careful…”

He lifts my knee and places it on his shoulder, and I have to grab something to stay upright, so I grab his head and push myself deeper into his mouth. He doesn’t protest at all, doesn’t even choke. I’m listing Republican Senators in my mind, trying to stop myself from coming too soon… Ted Cruz, John Kennedy, Deb Fischer… God, his tongue… Bill Cassidy, James Lankford… oh, hell, not my balls, that’s not fair, not my… David Perdue, Ben Sasse, Dan Sa… I feel his throat tightening around my cock, and I’m gone. My leg hooks around his neck reflexively and I double over, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pushing his head deeper, momentarily forgetting that he probably needs to breathe.

“Fuck…” I rasp. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

He makes some muted sound, and I slowly relax my leg, slide it down his back but can’t find the strength to stand upright yet. I clutch him tighter, rain falling on my back. Maybe I want to protect him, maybe I just can’t let go… Yes, I can’t let go. I never will.

I cup his cheeks and bring his face to me, tasting salt on his lips, in his mouth. There’s no way to cut short this kiss, so I get on my knees and continue it, until we’re both out of breath: a gulp of air – and back to his mouth, his face, his neck.

I won’t think why he’s so good at giving head, won’t think about it, won’t think… The last lover can be generous to the fallen. All those people who had but couldn’t keep him, I forgive them for trying. Victories soften your heart, victors can be kind.

But… mine. Forever and ever – mine.

Forget your history, learn from New York. It’s the last exit from Brooklyn, it’s the stop beyond betrayals.

We’re on our knees, the rain keeps falling – and I know you’ve never loved like you love today. I’m the sum of all your mistakes, the face underneath all the masks you’ve been wearing, the things you’ve never dared, the words you’ve never sent. I’m the youth you never had and always wanted, and you are the sliver of land on the horizon, three seconds before resolve breaks and the ships are turning back, empty-handed.

You shouldn’t be a man, I shouldn’t be so young, and yet the universe where we don’t find ourselves on our knees, gulping kisses, doesn’t know what beauty is.

“You won’t send me back to my room after that, will you?” I ask him when we’re lying in his bed afterwards.

He doesn’t reply right away, but we both know the answer. I will sleep here tonight, and the night after that, and the night after that… He’ll free the space in his closet, and I’ll bring my stuff here. I’ll find a pink silk sleep mask forgotten in the nightstand and throw it in the trash without hesitation. I’ll rub my face all over his pillow to make it smell of me. I’ll bring my toothbrush, my laptop, my notebooks, my penchant for eating in bed, my tendency to leave the lights on, my cursing while writing, my love of _The Sopranos_ and _The Office_, my professional interest in watching Fox News every night, my inability to shut up when he’s falling asleep, my perpetually cold feet and dangerously sharp knees, my Twinkies, my M&Ms, my Tostitos, my Oreos and all their wrappers, and all their crumbs, my lapsed Huguenot beliefs, my earmarked Chomsky, my unread Alinsky and Debs, my obsession with wearing his shirts, my envy of Chris Hemsworth, my skinny ass, my yawning mornings, my Midwestern vowels, my mistrust of New York, my amusement with Trump and respect for Obama, my worship of Kendrick Lamar and disappointment with Kanye, my often stuffy nose and fascination with conspiracy theories, my constant interruptions of his work, my habit of stealing his pens and sharpies, my superstitions, my grudges, my fears, my funks and my endless love for him – all this I’ll drag with me into his bedroom and announce that it’s there to stay.

He’s slow to reply, but he’ll say yes. I pull myself up and reach for his lips, while my hand unties his bathrobe and slips inside.

“Timothée…” he whispers.

I push him on his back and start kneading his balls, still hot from the shower and getting hotter by the second. “Don’t tell me you haven’t wanted it since the day we met,” I smile. “Don’t…” a bump to his chin, a kiss on his neck. “Don’t…” my cheek to his chest. “Don’t…” my nose, his bellybutton.

Don’t tell me you haven’t waited for ages…

“Did you just sniff me?” he is amused.

Maybe. I don’t know. I guess.

I’m not as skillful as he is, far from it. I gag immediately, I run out of breath, I’m not sure how to use my tongue or what to do with my teeth. I get startled when his hand lands on the back of my head and starts guiding me, gently but purposefully. I feel exposed when he brushes back my hair and I meet his piercing eyes. And when he is moving, it’s no longer me using my mouth, but him using it.

I don’t even know if I like it at first - I’m simply trying to relax and go with his flow; but I like that it’s him and I remember his words – this is part of love – and yes, it is. Between two men, it is.

The moment that I love comes with him – he pulls out too late, gushing with praise… all over my face. I love how miffed he is when it happens, how briskly apologetic and frankly incredulous at himself. And I love that it makes me laugh because it’s funny, so human and messy, and so not like him.

It gets into my nose, and before anyone can do anything, I sneeze with a hurricanic force and cover him with his own jizz.

“Well…” he blinks gingerly. “That’s… It was lovely, of course. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I nod.

He leads me on _American Psycho_ tour of New York. Tunnel, Arcadia, Espace, Hubert’s, Le Cirque are gone; but Indochine, Petaluma, 21 and River Café are still there, as well as the Yale Club, where Armand is a member, and the Four Seasons, whose gold chain curtains take my breath away, until I find out it’s aluminum in reality.

I haven’t yet recovered from Rector Street, where Patrick Bateman tried to feed a kitten to an ATM, when he stops in front of some spooky building and asks if I recognize it. I don’t, and I have no desire to, because it’s literally too close to home and if something gruesome occurred here, I’ll be pissing myself for months to come, knowing my fragile psyche.

“Dakota building,” he smiles. “Where Mia Farrow gave birth to a devil.”

“Jesus Christ…” I shiver manfully. “Polanski is so overrated. So overrated…”

Polanski and Farrow will be back in the news before the year is over, but we don’t know it yet. Armand thinks I’m “damn cute,” and I reply that he’s “fucking morbid,” and we keep walking, still not holding hands, because we still don’t know how.

He blows me on the kitchen table, I blow him in front of the fireplace. We take a bath together, and I almost drown trying it there, too. I ask him to do the _Dirty Dancing_ move with me, and he partially dislocates his shoulder lifting me up and so has to wear a sling for a time, which doesn’t really affect our love life - you can sit on someone’s face even if their spine is broken, so we manage.

He gives me the password to his Insta, probably thinking that I’ll never use it.

I use it immediately. Follow everything and everyone – from Hunk-O-Mania to Lindsey Graham; scan his old photo where he’s sprawled in a chair wearing a Playboy t-shirt, crop him out and superimpose it on New York skyline with a caption “Me And My Flying Machine.” I make him visit Egyptian pyramids, Great Wall of China, Eiffel tower and Great Canyon in similar manner. He bends over to reach for a pencil, I quickly snap a photo and post it too, because if Ashton could do it, why can’t I?

Well, I don’t have to wait long for an answer to this question.

“Tim, stop it!” Caro writes, and Armand wakes up.

By then, I – well, Armand - have accumulated 116 followers, and a bright future where I – well, Armand – can peddle vitamins and pantyhose in exchange for money and constant paranoia is looming.

“Timothée…” he sighs like a tired horse and looks like one.

“What?”

“Get my ass off the internet.”

He doesn’t look pissed, but he doesn’t look pleased, either, so I do.

“Why is Taylor Swift replying to me?”

“You think she’s the best thing that’s happened to music in the last fifty years.”

“That would include Pavarotti and Freddie Mercury.”

“No wonder she was flattered.”

“Yes, I brought you upon myself, I guess,” he sighs again.

I try to convince him to do the Ice Bucket Challenge, but turns out he’s done it already when it was going viral. There is this Invisible Box now, but I see people faceplanting left and right while trying to perform it, and he’s still wearing a sling… so I postpone it. In 2018 Fire Challenge arrives, and his face is truly priceless while I’m trying to explain it to him.

“Well, now we know why it’s called Gen Z,” he shakes his head. “Nothing will follow. Even evolution is powerless in the face of such idiocy.”

I kiss him on top of the Empire State Building. He gets me off on a Staten Island ferry. He takes me by the hand and leads me to the dining room:

“Look.”

I see an enormous bouquet of white and purple gladioli in the center of the table. Bursting hearts on a string, they change the room entirely – from a dreary cold mausoleum to a home.

“My mother loved them.”

I’m mesmerized. “Did she know?”

“Yes.”

“But she still wanted you to get married…”

He snorts quietly. “We’re a stone’s throw away from Broadway, Timothée. I’ve seen as many straight men in my living room growing up as you have gay guys in your small town - half of them were married, the other half had reputation of womanizers.” He looks at me, “Of course, she wanted me to get married. Every mother wants to spare her child pain.”

In the midst of it all, I keep thinking about Caro, but I still don’t know what to say to her. The obvious and useless _please, go easy on your dad_ will get me nowhere, I realize.

“I loved you. I really, really loved you,” I send her a DM. “Please, believe me.”

“I don’t have time for this, Tim,” she replies.

No, she doesn’t. It’s not yet what it’ll become but the family separation program has already begun in El Paso. There are few cases, too few to make it national news, but the words “zero tolerance” are cropping up here and there.

I briefly mention it to my mom, and she thinks I’m delirious, that it’s my bias against the current administration talking.

“All they want is secure borders,” she tells me. “What is wrong with that?”

Yes, Sean Hannity would ask the same thing night after night. What’s wrong with the fact that we want a society based on laws? Doesn’t take much to jump from this to – and Democrats are the ones who stand in the way. Why? Because they hate America, they are eager to turn this country into a cesspool, with no family values and a culture of institutionalized grift.

The problem we have with immigrants now doesn’t have anything to do with national security, I’m beginning to see, it’s simple indifference.

“I have nothing against these people, but why can’t they stay… wherever they’re coming from?” That’s what I hear more and more.

You list gang violence, rampant inflation, chronic unemployment, grinding poverty… and you see the eyes glaze over – people don’t really want to know, because they really don’t want to care. Caring takes an effort, while saying, “Well, if he weren’t dumb, he wouldn’t be poor,” is much easier.

“If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally,” Jeff Sessions will say. And it’s so clean-cut, so reasonable. Good people don’t break the law, right?

But you look at the map – two thousand miles from Honduras to Texas by land, not a pleasant road trip you take out of boredom or wanderlust, but a journey with rapes, beatings, torture, extortion and murder along the way; and you realize, it must be something really frightening they are fleeing from, if they are choosing to undertake it. These are not grifters we’re talking about, who presumably come to America to exploit our welfare system, these are people so desperate they forgot how to feel fear anymore.

We’re on Titanic again – while it was afloat, and those from the 3rd Class stayed below deck, we didn’t have a problem with them; but now that it’s sunk, and half-empty lifeboats are rocking on freezing water, we wrap ourselves tighter in our minks and sables, and cover our ears, because the cries of the drowning are too distressing. We understand, we commiserate, but we just won’t turn the boats and go back, into the darkness, to confront the misery face to face.

We have a history with Latin America, long and bloody; bloody enough for Eduardo Galeano to write about the open veins of the continent. Old Europe dreams of Africa and wakes up screaming; our nightmare has different coordinates but similar plot points.

“I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.” That’s not some hysterical soy boy talking, that’s one of our most decorated soldiers, General Smedley Butler.

We needed raw material and we needed it cheap, so we took it and built our manufacturing cities, leaving those countries forever bound to a contract they never wanted to sign. Now they are asking for a better life because, as all empires, ours has left scorched earth in its wake, and we’re erecting a wall, hoping that concrete slabs will spare us the sight of their ravaged faces.

We aren’t racists - we just don’t want to care. Indifference isn’t hate - Fox News is right here - indifference is that “death of the heart” Armand was talking about.

Got separated from her child? Must be her own fault. We warned her. Anyway, you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, right?

I don’t want to lecture my parents. I know they didn’t vote for kids sleeping on the floor under aluminum foil blankets, they voted for secure borders and a society based on law and order. It’s still 2017 and the worst is yet to come, the cases are few and mostly unreported, but Caro understands what’s what, and so more and more I see the photos from El Paso in my feed, and Armand usually leaves the room when I turn on Fox. I’d like to blame Trump, but he’s just a spirit animal of the time, our collective fear of tomorrow where we’ll have to reckon with our past mistakes, another brick in the wall those who managed to get into a lifeboat are building.

A guy in front of my usual Starbucks gives out rainbow flags and some leaflets. I pass him, but then return and take one for myself, putting it on my desk at work. I’m not sure what it means to me; if it’s a statement, I don’t know of what. When I ask Armand if anything has changed since he’s out, he rolls his eyes:

“Every third woman I know now comes to me for relationship advice. It’s becoming embarrassing.”

There is a lot of junk on my desk: piles of documents, brochures, press-releases, print-out maps, pens, pencils, coffee cup, teacup, stuffed kangaroo, bobblehead of Bernie Sanders, stapler, staple remover, small Christmas tree, homemade Tic Tac dispenser, framed photo of Dear Jeff, schedule of Armand’s upcoming releases, miniature Huguenot cross and Great Lakes State of Mind tumbler. Given all that, I didn’t think a rainbow flag would be noticed, but it is, and pretty soon.

“Fellow traveler?” Moses inquires.

He is a resident gay. His words, not mine. It wasn’t important until they had a big showdown with Stanley and Moses cried that he was tired of being a “magical gay negro here,” covering benign feel-good topics and dispensing cheap advice.

“What do you want?” Stanley grunted.

“Religious Republicans, all of them.”

And since all of them are religious, that’s what Moses is doing these days: applies a ton of guyliner, puts on a cowboy hat and goes, proudly returning with another Scripture the interviewee concerned with saving his soul gave him. What his parents intended while naming him isn’t clear - they probably didn’t expect that “his people” would include RuPaul and Barney Frank - but Moses himself is on a mission to lead his flock out of captivity; and now here I am, sort of out, but not yet proud.

“I’m… a member,” I reply sheepishly.

“Well, well… what a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” he drawls. “You free for lunch?”

“I…”

“I’m not hitting on you.”

“Thank you.”

He sighs. “KoFoo?”

“KoFoo’s fine.”

We order big bowls of spicy Korean stew and dig in. Moses mostly wants to know how and when it dawned on me that I love dick. He isn’t prying, but he’s curious.

“Really? Before that – nothing?”

“Nothing,” I shrug. “That’s… unusual?”

“Different folks, different strokes…”

We keep talking. He has an on-and-off boyfriend, a straight first love he can’t forget and a father who didn’t talk to him for three years after he came out.

“He didn’t curse me or anything. Just didn’t talk, like I wasn’t there.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. Ignored him. Then our pastor was charged with soliciting a male pro,” he smirks. “After that the church changed, and my dad changed with it. We’re good now.”

“My dad’s not religious…”

“Try through your mom, then,” he suggests. “A husband leads, a wife commands, you know?”

I nod. We briefly discuss the state of our union, but shoptalk quickly becomes boring – soon we’re going back to the office, and it’ll be Trump, Trump, Trump again, so I show him Armand’s photo and his silence bothers me.

“He’s a bit older…” I say and hate myself for sounding apologetic.

Moses scratches his chin and looks at me the way people do when they are about to deliver bad news. “Be careful, Tim.”

“Careful?”

“Ok, that’s not my business, right? And I don’t know the dude, obviously, but… I’ve seen these guys around. They develop a taste – start with thirty and go back: next time you meet him, he’s with a 19-year-old.”

“No,” I shake my head, “it’s not like that with us.”

“Great,” he nods. “Just keep your eyes open – while some would say that he’s too old for you, he may realize that you’re too old for him.”

I think he’s wrong, but his words are jarring. It still feels fresh and new and fragile, me and Armand, and so many things are constantly on my mind – both our families who, if not hostile, aren’t exactly sympathetic, our unequal financial status, our doubts, our fears and, yes, these persistent reminders that there is twenty-five years of difference between us.

“Why do you love me?” I ask later. “Don’t say you don’t know. You do. Why? If you… why?”

“When people ask that, they usually have an answer in mind,” Armand glances at me. “What if I get it wrong?”

“No, there is no answer. I don’t know myself. That’s the thing… I don’t know myself. There’s no good reason, really, except… Why would someone like you fall for someone like me?”

“Except for what?” he doesn’t let it go.

“You must have been with so many… They must have been smart, successful, accomplished. Mature, too. But look at me, why?”

“Stop with self-pity, it’s tiresome. Except for what?”

“Except for my age,” I say reluctantly.

“Timothée…”

“What? Isn’t it important to you?”

“Not in the way you think,” he touches my cheek.

“Why then?”

“Because you’re brave and kind, and few people manage both at the same time.”

That’s, honestly, the last thing I expected. “Kind?” I repeat. “I don’t even donate to charities, what’s so kind about me?”

“Alright,” he sighs. “It’s your perky young posterior, there’s no other reason.”

“No, wait, let’s…”

“Eat, and then we’ll dance,” he says. “I want to twirl you.”

“_Don’t_ twirl me.”

“I want to twirl you,” he nods.

…and I’m twirling, the room flies, my head spins, days, moments, conversations, kisses flower and evaporate in front of my eyes. It’s dizzying, and I’m falling, falling, falling, until he catches me effortlessly and gathers me in his arms.

Wonderful, fleeting, breathtaking summer, it’s ending, but in my heart of hearts I know that it will never stop. Memories keep bursting in my mind like fireworks, so many of them, and hidden among the treasures there is that one where I’m coming out of the bathroom and he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, our eyes meet and we know we’re going to make love tonight.

I’m not nervous - or maybe I was - but I think that I’m not nervous. I’m scared that it’ll hurt, and I assure him I’m not, and he knows I’m lying. He comes to me, picks me up and carries me to the bed, lowering us both gently and lying on top of me. There are kisses, so many of them, so deep. I offer him my neck, my chest. I’m not nervous, it’s just my heart, beating so hard, making me breathless.

Let me love you, I hear. He means, let me suck your cock, but he says let me love you, and it makes a difference. I take his hand and put it on my neck, and he squeezes gently, while his tongue massages every throbbing vein it finds. I close my eyes, I hook my leg around his shoulder, I don’t think I’m nervous at all, it’s just a shiver down my spine when I hear the pop of the lube being opened, when I feel his fingers touching the place I never thought I’d allow anyone to touch; touching, circling, slipping inside.

Inside. I don’t know why I’m moaning, why I’m biting my lips. He’s opening me… There’s nothing dizzying about it at all. He’s opening my body with one hand and squeezing my neck with another, but I don’t see it, I don’t see anything, my eyes are closed, I only feel – his fingers, his tongue, suddenly his throat. I only…

Did I… I don’t know until I taste it in his mouth. He whispers that it’s alright, it’s alright, but I know that it’s alright, I don’t know why he is whispering. It’s just so uncomfortable, so, so uncomfortable, that’s the only reason why I’m wincing. He’s kissing my face, it’s a consolation. But for what? For what? He spreads his fingers inside me – I arch my back in understanding…

It’s alright… it’s alright…

I know, I know… Just don’t do it… not like with a girl. Maybe I will let you later, but not now because it still matters…

Did I… I don’t know, but he slowly withdraws his fingers and turns me on my side, lifts my knee and wraps his huge arms around me.

We’re trying, then stop, then trying again. I’m biting the pillow, he’s stroking my head.

We don’t have to…

No, no, no… No! It’s part of love. I want it too. I want everything with you. I want everything… Are we there yet?

A bit more…

Ok, a bit more. I can take a bit more. Just hold me, hold me. I can take a bit more.

There, kitten. There…

And oh, I didn’t expect it – he is covering us with the blanket, tucks us in… His heavy breathing starts slowing down in my ear, and all I’m feeling is his warmth and strength, his gentle, quiet kisses on my cheek. Minutes are slowly melting from our heat, I open my eyes and turn to him, and there is that blue, my unique, familiar blue, my glimpse of Neptune on this earth.

I draw his head to me, capture his lips, I wince with his every movement, but it’s alright, it’s alright. We’re finally there, aren’t we? I’m finally home. I always knew it was you, from the moment I saw you.

Did you know?

Yes… yes…

Some people know immediately. Isn’t it the most terrifying thing to know immediately – this is the best of my life, the rest of my life? Isn’t it terrifying?

He will come, I won’t. Not that first time. He’ll entwine me with his body, hold me tight, hold me for dear life, he so big and so fragile, and we’ll stay like that for a while, two parts of love stitched together.

Closing my eyes, I see that summer again, my summer of love. Brooklyn Bridge, Patrick Bateman’s haunts, bouquets of gladioli, rainfall shower… I taste his lips, I feel the carpet in the living room… Rumba, I hear rumba, and I’m spinning faster and faster, and I’m falling, I’m falling… Until he catches me, effortlessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you.
> 
> It truly feels like I blinked and the year is gone – longer in my memory than in reality of its days and hours. Writing is learning, rewriting, obsessing, hoping for one good line to justify the rest, coming back to it and seeing there wasn’t one, but… maybe next time.  
And so, to the next time. To failing again, to failing better. To fighting laziness and fear. To the end of a decade and maybe the start of an age.
> 
> Happy New Year, my friends. It was a privilege.


	16. Chapter 16

Fact 1: Armand loves sex.

Fact 2: Armand loves walking naked around the house.

Fact 3: now… so do I.

Sex with Armand, it must be said, is a time-consuming activity: no quickies in this house. Which is good, I guess, because a quickie between two guys even sounds painful – take time with the assholes you penetrate, folks, have mercy.

Another thing, if you’re about to enter the empire of passion, choose someone who knows what they are doing for your guide. You don’t have to aim 25 years older – that, I admit, is for limited audience – but, honestly, two clueless people in bed usually spells blood, sweat and tears; so, yes, choose someone possessing of basic know-how - all your orifices will thank you later.

If you’re lucky, this someone will also happen to love sex: not just enjoy it – we all enjoy it, more or less – but love it. The difference is subtle, but it’s there; and it’ll improve the quality of your life in ways you didn’t expect: people like Armand will teach you to love sex, and because they’ll do it through loving your body, you’ll learn that as well; and the rotten truth about loving your body is that it’s impossible to do unless someone else does it too. In short, do yourself a favor and sleep with these people when you meet them. Sex creates lives, but good sex saves them - no amount of body positivity and self-help books can compete with dropping your drawers and hearing someone’s breath catch.

I wouldn’t say I had problems with my appearance before Armand. I didn’t use to stare at myself with loathing, wishing for some muscles to pop up, but I have a father who often jokes that I don’t need to fear the draft because no army on earth would ever want me, obviously. He’s busting my balls, yeah, but while being somewhat funny and mostly true, it’s still hardly flattering. So, I’m telling you, find a person who loves sex and you’ll find a cure. Suddenly, everything you thought was lacking will turn out to be enough and just right.

Sex is awkward, occasionally cringy, sometimes uncomfortable, often unpredictable. There are noises you can’t control, fluids you didn’t expect and smells that make your nose twitch. There’s a lot of stuff to be embarrassed about, especially if your partner _chooses_ to embarrass you about it. There is that ugly big toe, and the birthmark in your armpit, and the bellybutton that’s looked all crooked to you for years, there is fat where you wish there weren’t, there are bones and sharp angles where something soft should have been. Plus, you’ve been slouching all your life, and your feet are so fucking huge, and your Adam’s apple – if you have one – has always seemed bigger than your nose, and, Jesus, your nose… Everyone who came in for a ride on your family tree has contributed to that nose, and it’s a disaster, just nostrils alone – Dios mio! Anyway, you start on that path, you’ll never reach the end of it because everything will always look worse than in that Nike commercial you saw the other day; and until someone goes wild over your bellybutton, you’ll keep believing that it’s crooked.

It’s difficult to get pleasure from your body, until it provides it to someone else. Stop bullshitting yourself, to start glowing, all your cheeks need a fan or two.

But getting back to Armand – he loves the whole package: toes, and knees, and Adam’s apple. He thinks they are all fine. Maybe it has to do with his age because he’s reached that stage where he’s learned to savor everything – food, sleep, weather, books, me. A lot of stuff I used to take for granted, he doesn’t – time is precious, life is to be enjoyed; and with him, it translates into a sensuality that I didn’t suspect was there and creates one very generous lover as a result.

I thought I was generous, too. I mean, I took care of people I slept with, paid attention to their needs and all that, but I am not sure I made any of them feel adored, unique, and irreplaceable. I didn’t use to text during sex or smuggle glances to a TV screen where the latest episode of another forgettable show was playing, but I admit I was often perfunctory. At least, I don’t remember dedicating so much time to someone’s face and being able to come just from the expression of bliss written all over it. Armand can. He’d take my head in his hands and watch me come, and would come himself just from watching. Fifteen minutes later we’d fuck like everyone else, but it’s that fascination in his eyes that I’d remember most.

And that’s what you get, when you have sex with someone who loves all aspects of it and isn’t hung up on technicalities, like me. Again, I thought I was pretty chill myself, but as soon as assholes became involved I pivoted: Obama did towards Asia, I towards the bathroom. I became downright obsessed with cleaning myself up and would clam up every time he’d start poking places I felt better about in theory than in reality.

“Timothée, I know what the primary function of your rectum is, relax…”

“Rectum? No! no, no, no… I can’t do this. I can’t do _this!_ I can’t do… You see? Erection – kaboom. Hands off. Good night.”

“Timo…”

“What will you say next?”

“Fecal matter.”

“Good. Night.”

There are fucking limits, you know? But no, we have a Mr. Nothing-natural-is-shameful here, or some shit like that. It drove me nuts at first because, fine, love my toes, if you’re of a mind to, but Jesus Christ… I didn’t expect to be this intimate with someone after ten years of marriage, and here we hadn’t been sleeping together for a month, and we’re discussing…

“You’re immature,” he’d sigh.

“Try bed sores next time, maybe I’m into _that_.”

“I’m only saying that nothing catastrophic would hap…”

“Shut up! Don’t say shit. Don’t say _shit_!”

I got over it, though, when he finally found my prostate. Because, apparently, I have it well hidden, so he spent some time stumbling in the dark – used my face as an indicator: when it lit up, yeah, he found it. That’s how life is – you go on thinking G-spot is a myth, until someone starts stroking yours; after that – dignity? what dignity?

My eyes were hurting all next day because they rolled up so far back into my skull. My ass hurt too, a bit. In fact, the morning after the first big bang I found a pillow on my usual seat in the kitchen, which I thought was insulting and insensitive, so I threw it away and plumped myself down in the chair.

He was looking at my face. He thinks the face is the mirror of the soul, or some such nonsense.

My soul protested vociferously, so I picked up the damn pillow, and if I was blushing, it’s because he was staring.

“One day you’ll need it, too,” I promised, and that took his smugness down a notch.

We hadn’t talked about switching, but there was no doubt in my mind – I wanted in on the action. Look, it’s only fair, so hurry up and say goodbye to Reagan, baby, because my generation believes that everyone should be fucked equally.

#Bernie2020

Armand was rather mysterious about his political affiliation: he didn’t display reverence towards the Gipper, even though he gave his daddy a medal, and he didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about Bernie, which, in a way, was understandable – no one is a socialist on April 15.

As a result, I found myself in Caro’s shoes – constantly suspecting that I was sleeping with a Republican. But I’d already had one relationship soured by politics and that was enough I decided – even if one fine morning Armand woke up with a realization that it was Divine Providence that’d brought us Trump, I wouldn’t care. My parents didn’t stop being my parents just because they had drastically different opinions than me, so why should it matter here?

Still, fuck him I will, I told myself again. He didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about it either, that’s true, but time and patience, time and patience… I’m a fast learner, I’ll find some convincing arguments…

I licked my lips, and he noticed. Yeah, I have the best arguments at my disposal.

He has, too, though. All of them on display while he’s strolling naked around the house. Now, this one turned out to be a big surprise – the way a bare butt in the kitchen usually is.

“Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“I… well, no.”

It was Saturday, I think. I came for a cup of morning coffee and found this.

“Do you… do it often?”

“Alright,” he sighed. “I’ll go put something on.”

“No, no,” I stopped him. “You just… you haven’t done it before…”

“Lets the skin breathe,” he shrugged. “I got used to it while living alone.”

So, gradually, I got used to it too, that’s how we ended up bingeing the third season of _Twin Peaks_ naked on the couch in his living room. The skin breathes, I’m sure, but concentration wanders - episode four was spent nose deep in each other’s crotch, so I’m still not sure what Laura Palmer was screaming about at the end.

But if you’re not sold on health benefits alone, then consider shyness – this will rid you of its last traces once and for all. Again, it’s very nice to have an audience for your body. Very, very nice. Very good for your soul.

Meanwhile, August crept in, bringing with it Armand’s birthday – briefly, he was already fifty-one and I was still twenty-five, so we weren’t sure if it was a cause for celebration. He isn’t much into birthdays anyway - stops being important after you turn thirty, as he says. But I wanted to mark the occasion somehow and my financial situation improved significantly thanks to him – I bought a new pair of winter boots and was planning to quash my overdraft by February – so we went to Mission Chinese as my treat.

We spent a lovely quiet evening there, and he challenged me to order tofu - I’d been snickering at hipster food without even knowing what it was and in the end loved it, just like Joyce Carol Oates and everything else he encouraged me to try.

“I think this is a perfect opportunity for you to meet my friends,” he said carefully, while we were walking home.

“I’ve met some of them.”

“As my daughter’s fiancé.”

Well, yeah…

“Don’t you want to?”

“I…”

In truth, no, I didn’t. Maybe it was cowardly, but after my conversation with Moses I became very protective of us – every new person who appeared brought with them their opinions and prejudices, and no matter how I tried to ignore it, I knew it affected me, so I preferred to keep people at a distance. It was so peaceful and simple when it was just the two of us, without my family or his, without all those who feel sure they know how to best live _your_ life.

But we’d been together for months, and he’d already accepted invitations and gone to a couple of dinners without me, and I spent occasional Friday drinking with my coworkers; the longer we kept these things separate, the more it looked as if we were hiding something, as if we ourselves were ashamed of what was between us. Plus, we’d had that idyllic summer, almost miraculous, when, in the middle of Manhattan, I’d often felt like on a private island, far from the madding crowd.

“It’s just, knowing Walter, some are probably convinced that you’re still in high school,” he glanced at me. “And I definitely don’t want _that _reputation.”

See? That’s how your bubble of bliss bursts – no apocalyptic calamity, just nosy friends.

“Ok,” my hand slid into his pocket. “Let’s meet your friends,” I smiled and started preparing for war in my mind.

He arranged a dinner for the second week of September. At first, it was going to be in our apartment, but I talked him out of it – this was home already, and I still didn’t know those people, so I didn’t want them in my home. I’d feel better facing them all in a public place, where, even though they’d be thinking about it, they wouldn’t probably ask about our sleeping arrangements and I wouldn’t catch anyone sneaking into our bedroom and pretending it was by mistake. I’ve done it myself, so I didn’t have any illusions – people can be surprisingly tactless; though, if I found anyone in our bed, I wouldn’t quietly pinch his ass, like Armand did, I’d create a scene worthy of a Michael Bay movie.

Frankly, I was petrified, and my natural reaction was… well, natural – like a puffer fish, I tried to make myself look bigger and scarier than I actually was. The night in question, I was wearing a turtleneck and, passing by a prop store on my way to the restaurant, for a second seriously considered buying a fake beard and glasses, just to pass for a thirtysomething.

_ Hello, bitches! Now, who wants to talk about Harry Potter and videogames? _

No one did, it turned out. When I got there – I was a bit late because I wanted to – it became clear from their curious and slightly intimidated looks that they weren’t sure how to treat me either. The same sad magic that worked on Armand was present here too – my youth made them_ feel_ ten years older. I was afraid they’d find me stupid, and they couldn’t help worrying about looking ridiculous to me.

There were five women and four men, besides us. Reflecting in the glass, the table looked like it was about to slide through the huge circle-top window ceiling high and fly through the softly burning city night. Armand briefly introduced everyone, and I immediately forgot their names, although I recognized the guy I met at his previous birthday, who, judging by the startled blinking, recognized me too and correctly deduced that, yes, last time I was with Caroline.

_Is it really?…_ he turned to his wife.

_I think so…_ her eyes replied

_But…_

_We’ll talk _ _later_ _, dear._

_But…_

_Hold it!_

“Very nice to meet you all,” I said gruffly, aiming for middle age and sounding like a chain-smoker. Armand shot me a look saying he knew what I was trying to pull off here and that I should stop it immediately.

“We’ve heard so much about you,” the woman across the table chirped.

“From Walter?” I chuckled.

“You’ll love the risotto,” Armand cut in, opened the menu in front of my face and effectively screened me behind it.

Peekytoe crab risotto, I read. What gave him the impression that I’d like it, I have no idea, but I nodded obediently - it sounded like a grown-up food.

“We were talking about Ganja Yoga,” the guy on the right supplied. “I was thinking about signing up.”

“There won’t be any weed, Ernie,” Armand snorted. “Not in New York.”

“There’ll be _something_.”

“There’ll be stoners with sprained ankles.”

“You need to loosen him up a bit,” Ernie said and I realized it was addressed to me.

Everyone – but everyone – was interested in what I had to say to that.

You motherfuckers, I thought. You motherfuckers, you’re testing me.

I put down the menu and glanced at this Ernie. He looked like a poor man’s Armand to me – shorter, shabbier, rounder, expensive tie but askew, expensive haircut but on the wrong head, blue eyes behind stylish glasses, blue balls behind constant jokes.

“Dating a guy half his age isn’t enough?” I raised a brow.

Ernie didn’t expect it, neither did Armand.

“Hurts?” the woman to my left – Ruth, I think - chuckled, looking at Ernie. “What do you call it? Clapping back?”

“Oh, I hear this constantly these days,” someone groaned. “Is that from Twitter? or Instagram? Do they use different language there?”

“We try to use English everywhere,” I assured them, but they seemed skeptical.

“Then why is it _shook_?”

“From staying woke all the time!”

“Can’t even, my daughter wrote. But can’t even _what_?”

“Try yeet,” Armand sighed. “I asked Google, it said ‘self-explanatory.’ Not to me…”

“Yes, like being trapped inside _Finnegans Wake_, and no exit in sight…”

“And the acronyms, Christ, the acronyms!..”

“I made a dick pic recently. I sent it.”

Everyone turned to Ernie.

“My god, to whom?”

“Gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” he replied modestly.

“Just quietly distributes pictures of his penis,” Armand noted drily.

In short, if you were wondering what your parents and co. start whispering about after the third glass of Merlot, here was your answer.

“I’m not like that,” Armand leaned to me, and I wasn’t sure whom he was trying to convince – me or himself.

“Of course, you are not, dear,” I tried to keep a straight face. “And you better slow down there, man,” I nodded to Ernie, “can get you in trouble soon.”

“You mean Ronan Farrow?” Ruth asked.

Yes, by then, what was an open secret a year before was no longer a secret at all. It was still September, and a month to the publication, but everyone knew that an exposé of Harvey Weinstein was coming.

“You think he’s gunning for his daddy?”

“Which one?”

“Oh, Sinatra wouldn’t have survived a week in this climate!”

“You think it’ll be serious?” someone asked me.

“Depends on the public,” I shrugged. “Our task is to report the facts.”

“It _will_ be serious,” the dude from the last year’s birthday, who couldn’t stop staring at me and averting his eyes as soon as I glanced back, perked up. “Watch the crisis PR firms – stock has been rising since July.”

“Lawyers will clean up, that’s for sure.”

“All the necessary assholes will stay in place,” Ruth sighed.

“The ones who’ve got to go – they’ll go.”

“Yes, but who decides?”

“Shareholders, who else? And Twitter now.”

“Oh hell…”

“My firm is lawyering up.”

“Yeah, my guys too. Last week they took out the servers for some deep cleaning.”

“We have another harassment training coming up.”

“You watch, Andy will propose to his masseuse!”

“Better safe than sorry.” There were chuckles all around.

“Yes, it might be serious…”

“Yeah, it might be. Look what happened to Fox – Ailes gone, O’Reilly gone…”

“Murdoch’s there, though.”

“Yes, Ailes’s gone,” the wife of the staring dude smiled sadly, “…after forty years.”

Such a simple remark but for a moment no one knew what to say.

After forty years.

I think it was then that I myself started treating it seriously, not as a simple scoop or a career-making story, but as another potentially breaking point for our society. As I said, the fact that _NYT_ and _New Yorker_ were about to publish articles on Weinstein was no longer a secret, but you can never predict what impact, if any, the story will have. For example, there were several reports about Cambridge Analytica even then - everything that’d turn into a shocker six months later - but no one really paid attention, no one could imagine that it’d lead to Mark Zuckerberg testifying in Congress and start the conversation about breaking up big tech, the way it was done with oil companies and movie studios. It was all there, and no one read it, until mainstream networks picked it up and made it into a sensation.

So, with Harvey Weinstein – no one could really tell if the buck would stop there, with the articles dismissed as just another hit piece, or it’d turn into a cultural moment. And even those who’d begun preparing for a rainy day, I doubt they expected that it’d start pouring.

Suddenly I remembered my encounter with that guy at the wedding. Norman? Norton? I couldn’t even be sure about his name. I wasn’t really traumatized by that episode – I looked at it as something unpleasant but essentially ridiculous: he grabbed my ass, I pissed on his shoes. I mean, I didn’t have nightmares about it, or anything, but there and then I asked myself: what if it’d been different? What if it happened to me when I’d just arrived to New York, when I was desperate to get a job? What if the guy, who told me to write about cricket to test my skills, instead nodded towards the bathroom and suggested I gave him a blowjob, explaining that this was a standard hiring practice in this business for pretty boys like me? Would I have agreed? And what would that simple “yes” have done to me?

I probably wouldn’t have been able to look at intimacy between men as anything but dirty and degrading after that. I wouldn’t have fallen for Armand, or even if I did, I would’ve hated him for it at the same time. I wouldn’t have enjoyed my job because forever after it would made me feel as a whore. I wouldn’t have been able to trust people, would’ve started to look for their darker side before allowing for anything good in anyone. Any success I’d achieved, I would’ve loathed, probably because I would’ve loathed myself so much; and there would’ve lived inside me that fear, horrible fear of it being discovered one day and people saying: “Come on, what’s he complaining about? It was his own choice.”

A simple “yes.”

If the circumstances had been different, if the guy who grabbed my ass that day had any kind of power over me, it could’ve destroyed many aspects of my life.

And forty years! After forty years… how many lives destroyed, so carelessly and selfishly?

I hadn’t thought about it until then. I hadn’t thought how lucky I was that nothing like that ever happened to me, that too often it’s only a matter of luck – some people cross path with a powerful abusive jerk and some don’t. Luck, nothing else.

Now, I guess, would be the time to give a protracted lecture on feminism, but I’ve heard a couple myself and it was a couple more than I wanted to. And as a guy, what do I know about these things, really? Not much. I just know that if I had a womb, I wouldn’t want you ordering it around and I wouldn’t want to hear that I’m_ too pretty for this job. _I know that there are laws that need to be rewritten and reevaluated, starting with the Ten Commandments that came from a God that loves us all but for some reason were addressed to men only and considered women as valuable as a neighbor’s ass, meaning “donkey,” which is even more insulting.

I felt Armand’s hand squeezing my knee under the table. “You look pale.”

“I hope it’ll blow up, the Weinstein story,” I looked at him. “I really hope so.”

He nodded. The conversation turned to vacations and holidays, people were already planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Another Thanksgiving and Christmas – so soon…

“Have you decided where you’d be?”

“We haven’t thought about it yet,” Armand shook his head.

“You should try Barbados.”

“No,” I said firmly. “I hate Barbados.”

“Oh, why? It’s wonderful in December!”

“Bad memories,” I snorted. “No, we’ll…” I glanced at Armand. “Maybe we’ll go to Michigan for Thanksgiving. Christmas… Christmas, I have no idea. Too early to tell.”

“Oh yeah, I may go to Missouri myself,” Ernie sighed contentedly. “My first mother-in-law is a swell girl. Gravy to die for. Will see my kid, too.”

“How many do you have?” I smiled.

“What? Kids or mothers-in-law?” he chuckled. “Three of the first, two of the second.”

Then it became all about relatives – someone had an alcoholic father, someone else a chronically unemployed brother, there was a thrice divorced sister and a failed actress niece, there were exes and spouses and first flames and nasty neighbors, and that reluctance to go back to that place and you, you hoped you’d left behind but have to face again once or twice a year. And when it turned to families, it became about money, not only because the topics are inseparable but also because it’s New York, and as any LA conversation at some point turns to movies and any Florida one to drugs, New York is that place where you can talk about money and feel perfectly at ease: everyone inevitably knows a broker, was married or gave birth to one. You can’t escape it.

“Michigan?” Armand whispered.

“Don’t know. Maybe,” I shrugged. “Sooner or later I’ll have to tell them…”

He pursed his lips and didn’t reply.

Around ten, people started glancing at their watches and Armand suggested to call it a night. We raised a final toast to his health and happiness, and I discreetly perused his presents while he was paying the tab and saying goodbye. It’s nice to have a place on Upper West – everything becomes within a walking distance, so we didn’t have to call a cab and simply walked home.

“You were bored,” he said after a period of silence.

“No!” I shook my head. “No, it was better than I expected.”

He threw me an amused glance. “Better than you expected…”

“I thought it’d be all about books, you know? Powell or Proust - what do you think? That sort of thing…”

He was silent.

“You must miss it…” he said pensively. “The things people your age are supposed to do. The clubs and… all that stuff.”

“Would you go to a club with me?” I smiled.

“No,” he paused. “But I won’t keep you from going.”

“What? Alone?”

“Well, with your friends. I know you used to…”

_To go with my daughter _he was about to say, but didn’t.

“Well, it wasn’t often,” I frowned.

I didn’t know if I missed it, really. I could enjoy it, certainly, and I loved that blissful 4 a.m. exhaustion, cold wind in your face and a gulp of cool air in your lungs, when, drained and rebooted, you step outside after hours of dancing and strobe lights and inhale the city slowly waking up.

“Don’t make mountains out of molehills, ok? If I want some night life, I’ll go; but we don’t…” I glanced at the bags in my hands. “I didn’t give you any presents…”

“I told you I don’t want any,” he smiled.

“Alright, let’s throw these in the trash then,” I nodded and headed for the next bin.

He grabbed my arm. “What are you doing?”

“You tell me you don’t want presents and I listen to you, because I believe you know what you want; but I never complain about clubs and you suddenly decide you know better than me and that I should do things people my age do.

“What people, huh? Most people my age can’t afford social life in a big city and live in their parents’ basements, recording feminist anthems on their laptops and fretting about climate change. What people my age? Stop thinking in stereotypes.”

We stopped in the middle of the street facing each other.

“Give me these,” he reached for the bags in my hand.

“Oh, so you _do_ want presents? Even at fifty-one!”

“There’s a Wynton Marsalis vinyl there!”

“So?”

“So you _are _bored with my friends!”

“Yes! And? I’m bored with mine too sometimes!”

“Don’t…” he looked at the trash can.

“I won’t. And you, don’t tell me what to feel.”

“Alright, I won’t,” he sighed. “Let’s go home.”

“Let’s.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence, but it was an amicable one. You learn to appreciate these, too. They’re nice. He kept glancing at me sideways and snorting quietly and I kept biting my lip because I knew what was coming – the door had barely been locked behind us, when he caught me around the waist and pressed me to the wall in the entryway:

“I want to make love to you tonight…”

I shivered. I loved when he said it and he always said it, knowing that expectation of sex is far more erotic than the sex itself. He’d whisper it hotly in my ear and let me go do all my washing up, while the memories of his words were coursing through my blood and made my cheeks flush.

I look at myself in the mirror – too pale, too thin, too gangly… The door to the bathroom opens, and he’s standing there naked, soft eyes and hard cock; he’s watching me like I’m a masterpiece suddenly coming alive in front of his eyes, and my every cell lights up in wonder – you’re adored, you’re adored, you’re adored… What a strange, what an absolutely necessary knowledge!

He’d come inside, pick me up, and without meaning to, we’d both look in the mirror, where all my willowy limbs are wrapped around his massive torso, and there is nothing less scandalous than this – two people sharing a touch, a breath, a moment in time…

His hand runs slowly along my back. He loves it too. Every time he’d turn me on my stomach and trace my spine with the tip of his nose, his cheeks would glide over my ribs, his lips would whisper to my shoulder blades, and when he’s kissing my buttocks, I’d stiffen, I’d say no, again.

One day, he’d murmur.

I’d hesitate and agree, one day.

He climbs over my body and presses me into the bed, all those pillows – god, how I love them now, like falling into a cloud, so many of them and so soft – he imprints me into this bed, this moment, aligns our bodies and fucks me, which is neither the end, nor the beginning of loving someone.

It’s September, I’m twenty-five, and sometimes I believe I’ve never made love until that moment, I’ve never been loved so completely and with such tenderness, even though it’s difficult for his cock to be gentle. He relishes the difference in our sizes, how his body can imprison mine under its weight. There are questions, unasked, unanswered – is my assumed helplessness a turn-on for you? is this what you’re seeking wordlessly? Is this the dangerous shadow in your eyes every time you’re bracketing my head between your huge hands, waiting for my gasp?

One day. One day I’ll ask you. One day you’ll tell me.

I put my hand against my stomach and feel him inside – if this vertigo of sensation can be described, I don’t know how. Gut feeling? Jesus Christ… He’s touching places no one will ever touch, burrowing under my skin, carving his shape into mine…

Is this something only possible between two men? Pride and thrill rooted in shame but bearing intoxicating fruits. Is this why it’s always been forbidden? Because I wouldn’t know how to love a woman after… this?

It was next morning, I think, or maybe not, but it was in September that I woke up with an idea. It wasn’t a good one, and I wrestled with it for good five minutes until concluding, fuck it, most of my ideas are pretty dumb anyway: so what now, sit and wait until the good one comes along? And what if my first good one occurred to me at seventy? So, again, fuck it. Play the hand you’re dealt, I say.

I didn’t say a word to Armand because this idea contained within it a surprise, and Armand, like a lot of people, hates surprises. He’s glacial, meditative, likes to weigh all pros and cons and then to act, which is why it took us so long to get to where we were at the moment. And I am… well, I’m a spontaneous person with a lot of ideas, so – drum roll, drum roll, drum roll – I decided to give him a dog as a belated birthday present.

We’d talked about it, briefly, when I was going to marry his daughter and it seemed we had no future together. Well, now we had a future, so I thought we could get a dog too.

But I didn’t want to be a total asshole about it either, so I told myself that I’d just go to a rescue and look at first – maybe there wouldn’t be any that I liked, so why alarm him prematurely? Maybe they only had big dogs, and I’d never adopt a big dog, not something I couldn’t carry in case of emergency. And what could I carry? Well, I could lift two dachshunds easily, so, if something catastrophic occurred, I’d haul our two dachshunds and Armand would take care of the rest. Knowing him, he’d probably stack our suitcases with first editions of something totally useless even in peaceful times.

Still, two dachshunds were a bit much, especially during a zombie apocalypse. We needed something… _Hm, two dachshunds probably _ _contain _ _one basset hound. It fits._ I scanned through some photos and thought that Armand would like it – it looked exactly like him at his most melancholy.

By then I reached my office and an idea had become a plan, sort of: I’d go to the nearest rescue facility and look for a basset hound; if they didn’t have it, I’d… probably go to another one. Or maybe not. Maybe that would be a sign that we didn’t need a dog after all.

If they had two dachshunds, I didn’t know what I’d do. Again, two… I really wasn’t sure Armand would be able to cope with two.

So basset hound it was. By the end of the day, I got used to the idea so much I started trying different names, then decided it was up to Armand to christen him or her – no, her: he loved taking care of everything female, so I’d give him a female basset hound. Well, again, no, I wouldn’t give it to him, I’d go and look, and if the nearest rescue had a female basset hound then I’d weigh all pros and cons, bring Armand there and when he saw her, he’d melt, on the spot. We’d talk about it like two adults and then cheerfully adopt her. After that, he’d love me until his dying day for bringing so much joy into his life.

It was foolproof as plans went.

“If it weren’t for you, Timothée…” I heard his tearful voice in my head.

“Ah, don’t mention it,” I’d brush him off coquettishly. “Don’t mention it. My pleasure.”

Admittedly, not everyone was in such good spirits – we’d just been contacted by a source who claimed that Judge Roy Moore, then trying to win the primaries in Alabama for the vacated Jeff Sessions’s seat in the Senate, sexually assaulted them about 40 years earlier, when the alleged victim was 14. We didn’t even know if it was a man or a woman or if they’d want to go on the record, and Stanley had to do a lot of thinking before he finally decided that we should pursue it. The risk was obvious - if it turned out to be a hoax, we’d be the biggest idiots in town and Trump would have a field day, excoriating Dear Jeff to kingdom come straight from the White House. But the thing was, we didn’t have anything on Harvey Weinstein and we’d need something to justify our existence while others were collecting awards for stellar investigative reporting, so we jumped on Roy Moore. In essence, if you think that we’re solely driven by our need to uncover the truth in the name of democracy, think again – we need to make a profit too. Or rather, we try to make a profit and uncover some truths along the way, if any are available.

I spent the day on the phone, talking to the former owners of the local mall, mentioned in the tip, and trying to get them to fax me the plan of the building at the time, so that I could corroborate the basic facts of the story; I also contacted the courthouse and asked them to find his schedule in the archives, to make certain he was even in Alabama then.

By late afternoon, I had the building plan and a polite, but unambiguous fuck off from the court – they don’t really fancy _Washington Post_ there, it looked like, and they didn’t expect us to write anything flattering about Mr. Moore, so it ended with “come with a subpoena, then we’ll show you our records.” Stanley pondered that and decided that someone had to go to Alabama and start carefully turning over some 40-year-old stones. The mall looked legit, but if something happened there, we wouldn’t discover it over the phone – we needed to get the people who were working there at the time to talk, and to talk on the record, which demanded trust and trust demanded an eye contact. Someone had to go.

“Maybe there’s more,” Stanley was thinking. “If it’s true, there’ll be more girls. There usually are…”

“We don’t know if it’s a girl,” I reminded him. “Maybe…”

“Fuck, if he went after boys… Republicans’ll lose Alabama. Or worse.”

“What’s worse?”

“If he didn’t,” he looked at me. “Then we’ll be sued out of existence.”

“I can go.”

“No. Alice, I think. And Steph. They’ve worked on something similar before.”

“But I’ve got you the plan!” I protested, pointing at the blueprint on his desk.

“Don’t worry, Chalamet,” he sighed, “if the current trend holds, there’ll be enough creeps for everyone to investigate.”

So I went back to staring at the pictures of basset hounds and imagining how beside himself with joy Armand would be, when he realized that he could have a puppy. Once again, I didn’t plan to adopt anyone without consulting him. Honest to god, I didn’t. I’ll go to the rescue, I’ll find the dog, then we’ll return together, and…

On the other hand… I mean, they’re so cute, basset hounds, even unexpected ones - of course, he’ll love it! I was unexpected and cute, and he loved me.

No! He’ll kill me if I come home with a dog without warning. Sure, he will. Even my mom would, and she’s my mom.

Maybe two dachshunds then? There are two of them, but they are smaller. They probably eat as one basset hound, or less. Only problem, Armand would scare the hell out of any dachshund: I bumped into him one night in the hallway and was frightened half to death – it’s not for the fainthearted. No, basset is better, seems sturdier, like it could deal with a huge human.

Alright, yes, basset. I’ll go and look at a basset. I’ll just look. Take pictures. Show to Armand. He’ll melt. And we’ll have ourselves a dog. Then, if my dad is going ballistic over my gayness, I’ll be able to tell him, “Hey, I have a family now. I can’t abandon them, they need me, my Armand and our dachshund… I mean, basset.” And my dad’s heart will melt too – because dachshund. I mean, basset.

Foolproof. From whatever angle you look at it – a foolproof plan.

I almost called him and told him about it, but stopped myself in time – I knew him, he’d piss on my parade with something like, “Timothée, the fact that I like dogs doesn’t mean I want to own one.” And where would we be after that? Dachshundless, totally dachshundless and miserable.

No, I’ll go and look, I’ll…

So I went. And you know what happens to you when you come there? The Angelina syndrome kicks in – “My god, I want them all!” So forlorn and fluffy, they look at you, smell your palm and _please, please, please, I’ll be the best dog you ever had!_ And it’s very difficult to resist because it’s true: they need you, more than you’ll ever need them probably – they jump up and down, eyes so soulful, you’re their best chance at having a home; and it tugs at your heart, tugs at it with a force so strong, you can barely make yourself move from one kennel to the next, because you’re leaving someone behind and you know it, and it doesn’t feel good. No, it doesn’t feel good at all.

You can’t take them all with you, though, no matter how cute and desperate they are, you can’t take them all, because look at Angie, see what happens – your pretty husband starts drinking, leaving you no choice but to divorce his pretty ass. So I thought about Armand and fortified my heart against compassion: “Moderation, Timmy-boy, remember your priorities, no time to get all mushy, you didn’t come here for a divorce.”

Soon a guy who was working there came up and asked me if I was looking for something in particular, so I told him a basset, but maybe a dachshund, though really a basset. He got all cheerful – they had a basset, just came in. Would I like to see it? I said sure, I’d love to see it.

We went and, yes, there was a basset. But it didn’t take me ten minutes to realize that it wasn’t my basset at all - this rule, I found out, it works with dogs too, works with everyone. And he was nice that basset, but he wasn’t ours, he was waiting for someone else, and I think we both knew it, because he was no more interested in me than I was in him.

The guy, Steve, he led me to a dachshund then. Actually, there were two of them there, two dachshunds – and no, no positive juju there either.

“Who’s the biggest loser here?”

He didn’t understand.

“I mean, this one,” I pointed to the dog in front of me that had a lot of beagle in it, “surely, someone will come for him soon. He’s such a sweet thing.”

“Oh,” he nodded, “yeah, no, he isn’t a lost cause.”

“Show me the lost causes then.”

“They all would love to have a home,” he looked around.

“Show me those who probably won’t get it.”

“Are you just looking?”

“Depends on what I’ll see,” I told him honestly. “I have a ten minutes rule – if after ten minutes… It doesn’t matter, but it works. Show me the unluckiest ones.”

You know why bread and milk are usually at the back of the supermarket? Because that’s all you really need, but while you get to them you might be tempted to grab some other useless shit along the way, so by the time you’re at the register, even though you came for a carton of milk, you carry with you sixty bucks worth of everything you probably shouldn’t be putting in your body but that’s wrapped so nicely and smells so artificially delicious that you couldn’t resist.

Anyway, the losers were at the back. Those who needed home the most but didn’t look instagrammable enough for it: a three-legged poodle, a German shepherd with a huge burn on its side, a husky with a scar where an eye should have been, and so on. Those were all strays, not the dogs that were left there to be put up for adoption, but those found on the streets because their owners no longer wanted them.

I didn’t see him at first. I was walking through that gallery of misery, still trying to fortify my heart, telling myself that I was just looking anyway, I was just looking.

He was in the kennel before last. I stopped. He didn’t even raise his head to greet me, just blinked and sighed.

For the record – I did my due diligence there too, spent ten minutes staring at him; well, maybe less, but he wasn’t a snap decision, that I know. So I was watching him lying there and all I saw was Armand clutching his chest and collapsing with a heart attack, because…

“I’ll take him,” I told Steve, who was still hanging around, probably convinced he was wasting his time with another schmuck who just came in to gawk and pat himself on the back later.

“It’s a big dog…”

Yes, he was. No dachshund, no basset.

“Is it…”

“Great Dane, yeah.”

Christ, sorry, Armand. Like, really, sorry, but he’s ours, this one, he’s really ours, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I got down in front of the kennel. “Why is he here?”

“Old, sick… Very sick. Had been on the streets for months probably.”

That’s one of those only-in-New-York stories – like a pearl necklace found in the sewer or a Queen Anne cabinet being sold on a flea market.

“We can’t keep him much longer…”

“What do you mean?”

“He’ll be put down soon. Holding period’s been prolonged twice already.”

I nodded. Just one of those things - like Armand and me – wasn’t supposed to happen and did. I didn’t know I was coming here for you, buddy, I touched the cage, but it’s one of those things – pack your stuff, you’re going home, I’ve found you.

It wasn’t as simple as that, of course. I needed to have a letter from my building confirming that dogs were allowed there, a collar and a leash, plus something to prove that I could afford to maintain a pet like that, like a paid utility bill; and I had none of those things, but I had money for the fee, my driver’s license, my press card and my phone. So, even though at first Steve didn’t want to hear anything about it, I finally convinced him that I was legit.

“Look, I live right across the Park. You can probably see it from here…” I got out my phone and started showing him the photos, “That’s where I live. This apartment was built for a dog like this. That’s my dining room, my kitchen… That’s the bathtub – yeah, with a parkview. That’s my fridge,” I tapped on the picture I’d sent to my mom earlier for similar purposes. “And that’s my Armand – he’s the reason I’m very, very solvent. You get my meaning?”

“I can’t…”

“You can. There’s probably a pet shop just around the corner, I’ll go buy a leash, then I’ll sign everything I need to sign, and in a couple of days I’ll return with the rest of the papers.”

“I can’t…”

“You can.”

“Why the hurry?” he frowned.

“Because it’ll take time to convince my boyfriend that this dog is ours, and this guy,” I nodded towards the kennel, “doesn’t have time. If I come and say, ‘Hey, let’s adopt a Great Dane!’ he’ll throw a fit, and by the time I make him see the light, our dog might be euthanized. I _can’t_ risk it, and you don’t _want_ to – you like this dog, I’m sure of it. Let me save him.”

He didn’t relent at once – I had to spout some more humanitarian bullshit and add a hundred bucks, a guarantee that I’d return with the necessary papers in two days; plus, he checked out my articles and made me quote some of them to verify that I was who I said I was, I guess; but in the end, we had us an understanding.

It was really one of those things – there was indeed a pet shop just around the corner, and while I ran there to buy the accessories and some dog food that Steve recommended, he prepared the necessary documents for me, which I quickly signed upon returning. Took maybe half an hour, all things considered, and I left there with a Great Dane and an apoplectic Armand on the horizon.

The dog didn’t even have a name, they simply called him “Dane,” but I looked at him and I knew he was no Dane, he was something else, but I didn’t know what. Armand would know, I decided, he was always boasting about inventing the best book titles.

“He’ll probably slap you with a Falstaff or Fortinbras,” I looked at him sympathetically. “Good thing, you don’t care either way.”

We were literally just across the Park from home, on the East Side, but the dog – I simply called him “the dog” in my mind at first – he really seemed tired, and I had no idea how sick he was because Steve said their vet couldn’t do a thorough examination. I called an Uber, which was reasonable but didn’t get me anywhere, and after the third driver told me in so many words that he wouldn’t put this monstrosity in his car, I gave up.

“We’ll have to walk, my friend,” I told him. “It’s not far. You can almost see our home from here. We’ll just cross the Park, ok? We won’t go fast, I promise.”

He sighed. I sighed.

Nothing to do, so we went.

He was really slow. Really big, but really slow. Standing, he reached up to my waist, so it wasn’t immediately apparent who was walking whom in this scenario. But he looked so sad that none of the majesty natural to his breed showed – his ears were drooping, he kept his head down and simply made a step when I made one.

But we went. I got my phone and found out that he was a Harlequin, which is basically what you get if you put a thousand little Dalmatians together, so that was fitting too, I thought. On Madison we rested - and it was only fucking Madison! - there was the whole of the Park to cross still, so I began to get nervous because it was around seven by then and Armand had no idea what was coming and I had no idea if it was coming or would just sit there tiredly and sniff the pavement.

“Look, it’ll be better in the Park, I swear,” I squatted next to him. “Just make an effort. We need to get home, you know? You don’t need to worry about Armand, he’ll do all the worrying for the two of us, but we need to get home. Let’s go, ok?”

He sighed again but got up, and we kept walking. He did perk up in the Park, I think. At least, he showed some interest in his surroundings and stopped to smell things more often, which was good but it slowed us down again.

I was trying to imagine Armand’s face upon seeing us but nothing reassuring came to mind. In essence, want to test your beloved’s devotion – come home with a Great Dane, all your questions will be answered.

“You’ll love Armand,” I told him cheerfully and he glanced at me with doubt. “No, no, you will. He might seem scary at first, sort of unapproachable, but you get to know him and he’s nice, very gentle. Very caring too. He’ll feed you some seeds probably, which is for your own good, so don’t grumble. And then there’s Lupe…”

Well, yeah, then there was Lupe, and how she would react I hadn’t the slightest idea. My own relationship with her was hit and miss. First of all, because I’d never had a housekeeper before and psychologically it was a hell of an adjustment to get used to the fact that someone touched your clothes, prepared your food and went through your things from time to time to put them in order. Armand had no such problem, of course, he’d always lived with domestic help, and so it wasn’t an issue for him that a pen he’d left in the kitchen suddenly appeared on his desk later; but for me it wasn’t easy.

And it wasn’t easy for Lupe either in the beginning. She had trouble figuring out which pen was whose these days and couldn’t understand why, if she found a notebook under the coffee table in the living room, she should’ve just left it there; but in my mind, if I left something under the coffee table in the living room, I knew it was there and would never have found it on my desk where she’d diligently transported it.

That was peanuts though. My real concern was clothes. It just didn’t feel right that someone was washing them now, so at first, we had to fight for every pair of pants that I carelessly left on the floor and didn’t think anything about it until I found them later folded and ironed.

“She shouldn’t have taken them,” I protested to Armand.

“She thought it was laundry.”

“Laundry is in the basket!”

“Not with you. With you, it can be anywhere,” he’d roll his eyes.

“This is creepy, and I object. In the strongest terms.”

So I stuck a Post-It note on my door – I was living in the maid’s room then – “Nothing in this room is laundry!”

Temporary peace ensued. Then Armand caught me washing my unmentionables in the sink.

“May I ask what you’re doing?”

“What do you think?”

“Timothée…”

“I don’t… Look, if you didn’t make me jizz my pants every other day, I wouldn’t be doing it, you know? And don’t start with the washing machine, I don’t want to use it for a single pair of briefs, and I don’t want to collect them, either, because…”

“Jesus Christ, alright!” he raised his arms. “So where will it go afterwards?”

“Well, here,” I wrung them with gusto and draped them over the rim of the bathtub (I migrated to his bedroom by then, so it was his bathroom). “What?”

“Nothing. Go to bed.”

“Well, that’s another dirty pair in the making…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of them before it happens,” he rolled his eyes.

“May I ask Lupe to darn my socks?”

“No. _That _you can do yourself.”

“Oh, come on! As if you’re doing it yourself!”

“I do.”

True. He does. Lives in a fucking mansion but darns his socks. Because… Well, who knows, he has all sorts of weird ideas when you start digging.

“Luckily though, I don’t need to do it often,” he noted drily.

See there? That’s a jab, and a mean one. Had to do with the fact that I once forgot to cut my toenails, for a week or two. And yeah, I might have scratched him during the night and he might have woken up terrified that there was an animal in his bed; but, Jesus, one time – why get all hysterical about it months later?

So that’s about domestic stuff, but the second thing with Lupe that bothered me was that she was a Catholic, not because I’m a Huguenot and we’re historically at odds – Mexican Catholics did nothing to my ancestors – but because Catholics are still not sure what they should think about people like Armand and I.

When I asked him, that was exactly what he told me, “Timothée, she’s a Catholic…”

“Meaning she has a problem with me?”

“If you were her nephew, yes; but as it is… Ah, just don’t pester her. She won’t spit in your food, if that’s what worries you.”

This I could believe, because Armand and Lupe, besides being employer and employee, are friends. Has to do with the history that they have together, and that history is quite sad. When Lupe started to work for him, she belonged to an agency that specialized in finding poor foreigners, mostly Mexicans in this case, signing them up with a contract, all ramifications of which would be difficult even for a native speaker to grasp at once, and bringing them legally to the States for work. For all intents and purposes, the papers that Lupe signed made an indentured servant out of her: any dispute with an employer – private arbitration; anything that you earn – 70% goes to the agency; you’re on a working visa in the country, everything’s legit, except you can’t quit for about seven years, and if you do – huge fine.

Armand found out about it, got her a lawyer, paid the agency and basically bought Lupe out of that economic slavery; so now Lupe is paying him back, slowly, at the rate of about 20 bucks a month, but she’s paying him back because debts are sacred, and even if it takes her the rest of her life, she’ll still be leaving occasional fiver in the piggy bank in the kitchen, as a thank you.

So, no, I don’t need to worry that Lupe would spit in my food – Armand is a friend and whatever he does is fine by her, unless he’s doing it with one of her nephews.

“You have to be nice to Lupe,” I told our Great Dane. We’d reached the middle of the Park and it was ridiculous to call him anything but “ours” by then. “If you do something to her, we’ll both end up on the street. Lupe is important. Capisce?”

I guess I said something wrong because he immediately stopped moving, sat and looked at the ground.

“Oh, come on,” I patted his head, “she’s not so bad. In fact, she’s a great lady, and the cooking is fucking delicious. Let’s go. Everyone will love you, you’ll see, and if they don’t… Ah, you can’t let it get to you, man. Most people are prickly because they are miserable themselves. Trust me, I get dozens of nasty letters every day – none is from a happy person, I guarantee you.

“Keep your equilibrium. Armand does this breathing exercise, you know? Says it helps, restores his inner peace. Doesn’t restore mine, but you can try it. Let’s go.”

Nothing, as if I weren’t there. Instead of moving, he narrowed his eyes, slowly lowered himself on the ground, suddenly as regal as Armand at his waspiest, crossed his front legs in a motion so nonchalant and douchy Lord Byron could’ve taken notes and, I swear, raised a brow – _the fuck you’re looking at, peasant?_

“Jeesus…” I muttered and looked at my watch. Past eight. Armand wouldn’t worry for another hour – my schedule was often unpredictable, but I was usually home by nine. The lights suddenly came up and turned dusk into evening immediately. I felt hungry, remembered that I had dog food with me and had an idea.

I backed off several steps, stopped, opened the bag and shook it lightly. It smelled fucking delicious to my empty stomach, but my regal dog didn’t even blink - something akin to genuine incredulity crossed his face, and as if to spare me the embarrassment, he put his head on his paws and closed his eyes.

“Perfect,” I nodded, walked and sat on the curb, waiting.

Ten minutes, I decided, ten minutes and I’ll try again.

Half an hour passed – he was still lying there and I was scrolling through Twitter, freshly ablaze over Trump’s reiterated belief that there were good people on both sides in Charlottesville. Philip Roth probably wasn’t surprised to see torch-wielding marches to the cries of “They will not replace us!” on American streets, but I was when it happened.

St. Bartholomew night, Kristallnacht, anti-immigrant riots in New York – every time we say “never again” and believe it, but we aren’t very good at keeping our promises. America’s getting browner, and history’s lessons are harsh – democracies don’t survive diversity. We were doing fine while it was a melting pot out of which most came out Presbyterian, but we’ll need all our exceptionalism in the next hundred years to break the unfortunate rule.

I felt cold and wrapped myself tighter in my jacket. “Let’s go, man,” I came to him and stroked his head. “Let’s go. We’re so close. We can’t stay here.”

What if he can’t walk? I thought suddenly. I didn’t know how sick he was, I had no idea if he was in pain. What if he died right here, ten minutes away from home? What if…

I called Armand. What else could I do? I called Armand and scared him half to death, saying that I was in the Park, and couldn’t walk, and really needed his help. He said he’d come in seven minutes and arrived in five – glorious golden hair, crazy eyes and a hastily donned tracksuit.

“Well, here it comes,” I told the dog when I spotted him running towards us. “Be cute now and don’t get scared if there is shouting, because I suspect there will be.”

The dog lay in the middle of the lane, basking in the light, as conspicuous as red flags in all three of Trump’s marriages. Armand didn’t see him, he only saw me getting up from the curb and smiling angelically. Immediately I was inspected for any apparent injuries and hugged, which was really nice because I missed him and because he was very warm after running and I was freezing, but as soon as the picture of me lying bleeding in some ditch started dissipating in his mind, the questions began.

“What happened to you?”

English vocabulary was powerless to explain it, so I simply nodded towards the dog.

He didn’t understand.

“It’s ours,” I said and was unhugged after this.

He stared at the dog wordlessly, pinched the bridge of his nose, was going to say something, didn’t, tried again, didn’t.

Finally, exasperatedly. “What did you do?”

“Every problem is an opportunity in disguise,” I said solemnly. “Benjamin Franklin.”

“John Adams.”

“Well, maybe.”

He crossed his arms. “Start explaining.”

I did. And I tried to be thorough because he looked like he was about to turn around and leave the two of us there. So I mentioned everything: how I woke up with the Idea, the moment when I was standing in front of the kennel, my Angelina moment, two dachshunds, my original intentions, the ten minutes rule…

“…because it works, you know? I didn’t make the decision until I was absolutely sure. It was quick, but I was absolutely su…”

“No, no, no,” he shook his head. “Just… no!”

“Don’t get emotional, we’re in public.”

“Do you know what this is?” he asked suddenly. “It’s every idiocy, every breathtaking stupidity I should’ve committed in my youth and didn’t, it’s catching up with me now. I thought I was smart, careful but… Pride goeth before destruction!” he nodded sharply. “He waited, and now, in my fifties – you! I mean, health, money, good job – something was gonna give, right?”

I was about to protest but just then the lightbulb in the nearest lamppost hissed and blew up, letting out a stream of whitish smoke.

“Jesus Christ…” I crossed myself.

“I shouldn’t have tithed in Canadian dollars,” Armand nodded to himself. “Too smart by half…”

“I’m cold,” I shivered.

What else could he do? He hugged me again, of course, put his chin on top of my head and started thinking – he likes to do it in times of crisis.

I licked his neck.

“Stop.”

I stopped. My stomach growled.

“You want to be mad at me but can’t, because you love me,” I enlightened him. “It’s very frustrating. I understand.”

“_Do_ you?”

“I… Yes, I can’t get mad at you either.”

“And what did _I_ do to you?”

“You think Nolan is overrated.”

“Everyone since Bergman is overrated,” he rolled his eyes.

“You don’t answer half of my messages!” I huffed. “Still.”

“Half of your messages are photos of food.”

“They are conversation-starters!”

“‘Can we understand good without evil?’ is a conversation-starter; half-eaten burrito is… I don’t even know what it is, so I don’t know what to say to it.”

You listen to this! That’s what I have to deal with, like every fucking day. And he’s complaining about a pet?!

I glanced at our dog still lying there. “We have to get him home, Armand. He’s probably hungry, too.”

He looked too, blew out a breath, went and squatted next to him. After letting him smell his palm, he stroked his back soothingly and tugged at his collar. The dog didn’t budge.

“Alright,” Armand sighed, looking at the sky in defeat, “let Thy will be done…” After that, he carefully slid his left arm under the dog, wrapped his right around his hind paws and slowly lifted him up. They both made some mournful sounds.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Who would? These dogs are as big as ponies.

“Let’s go,” Armand winced and started walking.

I blinked and hastened after him. “You’ll throw out your back!”

“Why else did you call me?” he looked at me askance and kept walking.

I… well, I thought he’d figure out what to do. I mean…

“I wanted to get a basset, initially,” I bit my lip.

“You should’ve,” he grunted.

Fortunately – and sadly – the dog was all flesh and bone, that’s why he managed to lift him at all. Still, watching this display of physical prowess I started thinking that maybe going to the gym and jogging every morning wasn’t such a waste of time. Clearly, it worked for some. Well, it works for me, because Armand can carry me too – mainly towards the bedroom, but I wouldn’t want to be carried anywhere else, to be honest.

We reached the exit from the Park, crossed the street and Armand put the dog down. His arms were shaking from strain and there were drops of sweat on his temples.

Propping his hands on his knees, he bent forward and was breathing heavily. “You walk now,” he told the dog, straightened and rubbed his lower back. “Let’s go.”

We went. All three of us.

“If the concierge is there, distract him,” he ordered, when we reached our building.

“Oh, we need to…”

“We need to get permission from several people,” he sighed. “_Before_ acquiring a dog.”

Mr. Herron’s desk was deserted, so we crossed the lobby and rushed to the elevator.

“Fifty-one years old… Christ, what am I even doing?” Armand mumbled, while pushing the dog, who didn’t wish to be rushed anywhere, to come inside.

It’s a nice elevator, I can’t deny it, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Well, our dog had other ideas, because after he got onboard, he vehemently refused to get out, when we reached our floor.

Armand swore under his breath, tried to lift him up again and couldn’t, so we basically had to drag his regal Harlequin ass across the marble landing to our door and into a bright future. We were lucky to sneak inside just when there came the sound of a lock being opened and our neighbor Justin Dickie, a lawyer and a dick, came out. He and Armand were civil but hardly cordial towards each other: Armand grew up in this building, Justin was a nouveau riche; Armand looked every inch of a classy WASP that he was, Justin had a perpetual expression of a child whose mother just told him he wasn’t even her second favorite; Armand could seduce a 25-year-old, Justin often returned with chicks who had “high class hooker” written all over them. No love lost there, in short.

I glanced through the peephole – Dickie, who managed to look passable only through a peephole, paused by the elevator and was sniffing the air. Jesus.

“Does he have a name?”

“Justin,” I chuckled.

“The dog.”

“Oh… No, I don’t think so. I thought you’d…”

“Rudy,” Armand said without hesitation.

“Rudy???” I looked at him incredulously. “What, after Giuliani?”

He shrugged.

“Sometimes… sometimes I think you’re a Republican.”

“In twenty-five years you’ll be too,” he snorted. “Alright, go change and we’ll eat.”

When I returned, I found him sitting crosslegged on the kitchen floor, gently stroking… Rudy’s back with one hand, while offering him water in a salad bowl with the other - prudent dog owner that I am, I forgot to buy dog bowls.

I sat next to him. Rudy stopped drinking, put his head on Armand’s knee and stared at him pensively.

“He’s deaf.”

“Deaf?”

Armand nodded, raised his hand and clicked his fingers out of the dog’s sight – Rudy didn’t react at all.

“First thing on Saturday, we’re going to the vet.”

“Ok,” I swallowed.

“Whatever we hear,” he turned to me, “you won’t fall apart.”

“He’s such a beautiful dog…”

“Timothée.”

“I won’t fall apart,” I promised.

We kept glancing at him while we ate and he looked at us, seemingly more resigned than peaceful. I don’t know if he realized that we were a family now, the three of us, he’d probably gotten used to strange people and strange places and wasn’t even slightly curious about the apartment. Armand brought an old towel and laid it on the floor for him, but Rudy didn’t seem interested, and we didn’t know what else to do, so we added some more food and water and left him there for the night.

Later in bed, we talked. I was sitting on his lap and he was watching me. “I didn’t know what you’d do,” I confessed. “We were walking through the park with him, and in the back of my mind I kept thinking, ‘I’m so screwed, he’ll be so mad...’”

“I am,” he smiled.

“You hide it well.”

“It’s not that… I think I understand why, and so I’m not as mad as I probably should be. You’re young, feelings are messy…” he paused. “When I was seventeen, I fell in love with a friend. He took it very calmly but was very clear that it wasn’t mutual. Instead of accepting it and being grateful for his kindness – because he could’ve reacted… very differently, you know? – I got vindictive and started spreading rumors about his girlfriend,” he sighed. “They broke up soon after.”

“The moral of the story eludes me...” I admitted.

“The moral… You know what this whole situation reminds me of?”

I was sure I didn’t want to but it was obvious I was about to find out.

“A woman who suddenly announces she’s pregnant just when relationship starts going south.”

“I didn’t want to… to trap you with a dog!”

“What _did _you want?”

“I wanted to give you a present.”

He kept watching me.

“No!” I crossed my arms. “You can keep staring at me until morning – that’s not what I wanted.”

“You’ve never thought this might end? You and me.”

I looked away. “I have.”

“And what do you see, when you think about it? Is it amicable? Some, god help us, conscious uncoupling? No broken dishes, no cruel words – we’re having coffee one morning and _you know, Armand, I may not love you anymore_. Gentle smiles, helpless shrugs, because, really, what _can_ you say when a love affair is over?”

“No, that’s not what I see at all.”

“Then what? My hands are shaking, searching for an absent cigarette, and I’m alarmingly cheerful but read between the lines and I’m really threatening to slit my wrists if you leave me? Some Edith Wharton, as imagined by Cassavetes. Is that it?”

“No,” I shook my head, my voice becoming small, “we’re walking home from another book party, you start with some pretentious quote, heap on a couple of platitudes… You want it to be in public, but not in some cafe where every loud word can be overheard, so you choose the street because you think I’ll try to control myself, and you’re right. Something about the things that’s ran their course, some encouragement – _you’re so young, Timmy_; the usual bullshit of _it’s not you, it’s me_, which is actually true in our case…

“You help me pack my things, you pay for the cab. Before I have a chance to ask, you’re already saying that staying in touch isn’t a good idea, at least for now…

“You’re being very gentle,” I whispered. “So very gentle it embarrasses me that I want to scratch your face until you bleed, until you feel even an ounce of pain that I’m feeling...”

His palms flexed on my hips. “Hence the dog?”

“Maybe,” I felt my body growing heavy with exhaustion. “Maybe. But if he’s as sick as he looks, I won’t overstay my welcome.”

He raised his eyes to me and looked for a long time. “It is truly incredible...” he mused. “First time I saw you, I wanted to keep looking at you. Just looking at you. Then, walking home, I stopped on the street, it was suddenly clear to me that my whole life I’d been waiting for your face, waiting to understand why even the loveliest of women couldn’t make me yearn for them. And it made me so angry, because it came so late, too late. Why showing me something I could never have?

“But then I realized that it was fair, that had I met you in my twenties, I’d have had and lost you so gracelessly and clumsily. I’d have wasted you on a whirlwind of an affair, guilt-ridden and brief, one that makes you pick up the gun and put a bullet in your brain two decades later, when you finally see what it really was. But here you were, and though I couldn’t have you, I could love you, truly love you, with all the fire I’d been too afraid to feel before.

“I told you that I hug you in my sleep as a force of habit, retained after years of marriage… It’s not true. I didn’t do it before. And so it is… truly incredible that you feel insecure when I love you like I’ve never loved anyone in my life.”

After that we fucked.

I’d like to come up with something more poetic and false, but we just fucked. Long, sweaty, ferocious lovemaking. I scratched his back. He ripped some upholstery off the headboard. Finger bruises on my shoulders, hickeys on my inner thighs. Blood from his broken lip on my cock. Pillows scattered around the room.

Why? I don’t know why. We’re mostly calm and steady in bed, boring almost. He doesn’t dress up as My Little Pony and I don’t chase him around the apartment with a whip. Nothing surprising is usually stuffed up my butt, and he doesn’t require wearing his granny’s panties to get hard. Roleplay was brought up and dismissed. As what? Master and slave? We both wanted to be masters, so until we find ourselves a slave that’s on hold. Food has erotic possibilities, that’s true, and he fed me grapes once, but after one cluster that too becomes redundant, you know?

So we’re ordinary as hell. Well, there was that time when we decided – ok, I did – decided to fuck on the balcony. He was skeptical and he was right. I got dizzy and nauseous while bent over the railing, he got cold and there were flies; so it’s like fucking in the shower – very hot, until someone slips and cracks his head over a nearby toilet on his way down. Or maybe I’m getting old and crotchety, I don’t know, maybe licking whipped cream from his hairy chest is what separates me from an orgasm of a lifetime. Time will tell. As it is, we’re basically following Armand’s monastic philosophy that for a good sex you need a willing participant and a comfortable bed. It’d be intolerable, if he didn’t live through the 90s and its New Age obsession with everything tantric, when_ I was coming for ten hours straight_ was in vogue; so, even though we do boring things, we usually do them for a very long time, and when you do something for a long time, it can get intense – put a glass of simple water into a microwave and set the timer for an hour, see what happens. Or better don’t - because the water explodes.

And there are times when so do we.

I was staring at the ceiling, completely drained. “I want to fuck you.”

He snorted. “Giving me a Great Dane isn’t enough?”

“No, I mean really fuck you...”

“Go to sleep,” he kissed my shoulder, curled all his six feet around me and passed out on the count of three.

Next morning I was woken up and told that we lost our dog.

Don’t worry, yes, I almost had a heart attack too, but Rudy wasn’t dead, Armand simply couldn’t find him. Turns out, it’s surprisingly easy to lose a deaf dog in a big apartment, even a pony-size dog.

After some wandering around, we finally located him under the table in the dining room. Armand pulled out a couple of chairs, crawled down there, communed with him for some time and managed to convince him to go for a walk, and I went back to sleep because it was like quarter to six, and only Armand thinks it’s reasonable to get up that early.

I still owed the papers to the rescue, and Armand got me the necessary paper from the president of our HOA, which I proudly delivered to Steve, but we also needed another set of permissions from our next-door neighbors, and here I was on my own. The Ballards turned out to be very obliging – they had a dog too at one point and when I explained Rudy’s situation they signed without much brouhaha. That left only Justin, and fucking Justin…

Ok, right, I know, theoretically we were in the wrong here – the whole idea of getting permission presupposes that you have to ask for it _before_ doing something. I know, so I plastered a beggar’s smile on my face and ringed on his door. I told myself I’d be civil: Armand’s parting words were “don’t come back with a lawsuit,” and I firmly believed that most situations can be resolved peacefully. Who knows, maybe Justin wasn’t a douche, maybe he only looked like one? Maybe this situation would forge an unexpected neighborly bond between us?

Justin opened in a green silk kimono, and it went downhill from there.

“Mr. Dickie,” I smiled obsequiously.

“No comment,” he rolled his eyes and started closing the door.

“No, no. I’m not here in my professional capacity, I came as a neighbor.” He frowned and I continued, “You see, we got a dog and we need your signature…”

“You mean you’re _going_ to get a dog,” he interrupted.

“No, I mean we have one already.”

“That would be a violation of my rights as a homeowner.”

“Technically.”

“De facto.”

I rushed to tell him the whole sob story, which was a mistake because Justin is a corporate lawyer – every story he hears is a fucking tragedy. I could just picture him shuffling photos of emaciated patients who got cancer because another chemical giant decided to bury poisonous waste ten feet away from the aquifer and calmly filing for an appeal he knew would drag until the last of them died, while simultaneously calculating his bonus.

Alright, maybe he wasn’t _that_ coldblooded but I wouldn’t put it past him.

“Justin...”

“I have an allergy.”

“To good deeds?”

The door started closing again.

“No, wait. Wait! Look, you won’t even see our dog. We can use the stairs when we walk him; and he’s very quiet, I assure you, there won’t be any noise. He’s been living with us for two days and you haven’t heard anything, right? He’s also very friendly. He lets strangers pet him… You can pet him. Plus, there are other dogs in this building – your allergy seems to handle them well.”

“Not on this floor,” he glared at me. “There won’t be dogs on _this_ floor.”

No lawsuits, Armand said. Alright, let’s try another approach.

“Justin,” I said gravelly, “I have 1500 Twitter followers. With 0.07% engagement rate.”

He didn’t even blink. “Bullshit, you have 973, and your rate is probably 0.03% on your best day.”

Behold - a duel, millennial style: two dudes flexing their stats and threatening to ratio each other into cyberoblivion.

“Fine,” I nodded, “but I have friends who have 300 _thousand_ followers.” Like Stanley. “If we have to return our dog, he’ll die. If he dies…” I sighed. “Oh, can you imagine the colonic cleansing you’ll get if your name is anywhere near this story? Remember that dentist who shot a lion? I heard he’d gone into hiding…”

“This is a threat,” Justin interpreted correctly. “Do your worst, I don’t give a damn.”

When all else fails…

“Alright, let’s be civil,” I gave up. “Let’s trade. Here is your chance to acquire a friendly journalist. Very useful thing these days.”

“You’re whining about Trump all day long, what good are you to me?”

“I could whine about something you find regretful, like frivolous lawsuits, for example. I’m very versatile, ideologically promiscuous and fully flexible.”

Something I said sounded good, because he started thinking. “Are you involved in this Weinstein business?”

“No, that’s the _Times_, but…”

I didn’t need to finish. He nodded. “I may need…”

We stared at each other. That’s why my profession is the second oldest, that’s why it takes sometimes forty years for something to be reported.

“I could give you a heads-up if something stinky’s coming your way, but that’s it,” I said calmly. “I won’t bury a story for you.”

“Bury your dog then.”

“Fine,” I nodded. “Have a nice evening.”

I turned and started walking to our door.

“Chalamet.”

I looked back at him and sighed. “It’s Sha-lamet. French origin.”

He righted his kimono, then stretched his hand towards me and wiggled his fingers in a give-me gesture. I returned and handed him the paper.

“We have a deal?” he glanced at me again before signing.

“Yes, but there are limits and the deal has an expiration date – I won’t be your bitch indefinitely.”

At last he signed. “Say hello to your daddy,” he smirked giving it to me.

“Oh, Justin, Justin,” I smiled sweetly, “is that it? Bitter you can’t have a ride on his dick too? You poor...”

He slammed the door in my face.

Neighbors.

I returned home and presented the signed permissions to Armand.

“What did you do?” he asked suspiciously.

“We came to an understanding.”

“What kind of...”

“Non-sexual. He’ll fuck me a bit, and I’ll have to swallow, but… nothing I haven’t seen in my trade before. And he’s hot for you, by the way.”

“What?”

“Oh, totally. I thought it was just envy but he’s probably wanking to your ass behind that wall,” I motioned.

“We have a vet appointment tomorrow,” Armand rolled his eyes, visibly tired of my nonsense. “Don’t fall apart, remember?”

“I won’t.”

I didn’t. The initial examination turned out to be unpleasant but brief. When the doc started palpating his stomach, Rudy made a sharp pained sound, and soon we watching our dog being carted off to the next room for an ultrasound. Armand seemed grateful when I took his hand, and I didn’t let go of it until the vet came back.

It was pancreatitis, by then chronic; most likely the result of living on the streets and eating garbage. His liver and kidneys were affected too, and the doc suspected there might be brain damage but he couldn’t say without MRI. His deafness was congenital, there was some mutation that caused it - he wasn’t exactly a Harlequin but a mix of a Harlequin and a Merle, which gave his coat that grayish tinge that I thought would go away after washing.

Someone had to ask it, so Armand did. Was it more humane to put him down? How much pain was he in?

It turned out we brought him there just in time - without medical intervention, he’d have been dead within two weeks. Yet not everything was lost - pancreatitis, even in his case, was treatable and with proper care we could expect him to live for another 3-4 years. Nevertheless, his condition was so severe that we couldn’t take him home immediately – he had to be hospitalized for a week, to be fed intravenously and undergo a course of antibiotics.

“You can visit him every day,” the dog assured us. “Talk to him, use your hands - deaf dogs are exceptionally good at reading facial expressions and gestures. Then, as soon as he gets used to you and accepts you, he’ll love to be touched a lot.”

We came to the table Rudy was lying on and Armand let him smell his palm, stroked his back. It was difficult to leave him there, but we had no choice.

I promised we’d come the next day, but just then Stanley offered me a gig as a research assistant on the documentary CNN was making about the 2016 election, and we decided that I should take it, so I spent two weeks at the studio, buried in graphs and stats, reliving that circus all over again, while Armand had to go visit Rudy alone. I think that’s when they really bonded, because when next Saturday we went to take him home, it was clear whom our dog was happy to see and who was_ oh, you’re there too._ I watched the two of them and thought, they make sense, this big man and this huge dog, walking together, both so regal. After all, I made the right decision.

At home we gave him a sponge bath. He didn’t like bathrooms for some reason, so Armand put a towel on the kitchen floor and we washed him there; he bore it patiently and when we finished, shook off the remaining water and went again to the dining room, crawled under the table and lay there till morning.

It didn’t take him long to figure out how things stood in this house: we could be neatly arranged by size and height – Armand, me, Lupe – so it wasn’t difficult for him to determine who was the leader in our little pack, and he pledged his allegiance accordingly, meaning that if Armand wanted something, Rudy understood immediately; if it was Lupe or I – he was suddenly deaf again.

“Es un monstro, Dios mio,” was Lupe’s first impression. “Un monstro...”

Harsh, but, given all the stories of housekeepers being mauled by their employers’ exotic pets, I didn’t blame her; and at first we agreed to lock him in the dining room on the days when she came in to clean and cook; he was spending all his time there anyway.

Armand walked him in the morning - Rudy couldn’t run, so Armand now couldn’t either. I sometimes watched them from the window, crossing the street and disappearing in the Park, and kept thinking that yes, they looked great, they looked right together. No bassets would do the trick.

All the best laid plans, you know? I went to get a dog that I could carry and ended up with the one that could carry me; I met a girl but fell in love with her father; I wanted to be a Roberd Redford and turned into a Dustin… But hey, it all started with a Watergate movie, and now history obliged and threw another one my way: Nixon approved a break-in to the DNC headquarters, Trump encouraged Russians to hack the DNC servers; so you never know, life is like a stock market: those who say they understand it are the ones you should never trust with your money. Stay away from gurus – wisdom is cheapened by a fee; it’s just up, down, bust, up, down, bust in an endless cycle. If there were no downs to teach you, you’d never recover from a bust; but if there were no ups, recovering would be pointless.

Find one thing, no matter what it is – city, job, religion, person, party – that can make the rest bearable, and hold on to it, hold on to it for dear life. The rest, it’ll let down and disappoint you constantly, you can’t control it; but if you figured it out, if you found that special something, there’ll always be a North on your compass; and most of the time that’s enough to keep going.

That’s what I was thinking while watching Armand teaching Rudy some form of sign language.

“It’s enough,” I murmured.

“What?” he looked up.

“The three of us,” I smiled. “And Lupe. The three of us and Lupe, that’s enough.”

He pecked me on the cheek. “You have a hole in your sock,” he said with a smile, “again.”

I went to get the sewing kit. Find your something, as a bonus you may even learn to darn your socks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!
> 
> The delay in posting was unfortunate, but inevitable. Still, I hope you enjoyed reading this.


	17. Chapter 17

Every family is crazy in its own way. I have distant Canadian relatives who year after year threaten to emigrate to France, since the father found out that Yellowstone is overdue for eruption, and regularly scold my mother over the phone for her nonchalance: Pack your shit and evacuate! North America will turn into a wasteland, don’t you get it?

“Why don’t you go yourselves?” my mom asks, lightly banging her head against the wall.

Well, they don’t go because taxes are higher there, and humans would rather live in close proximity to a supervolcano than pay an additional hundred euros a year.

This law of family craziness defies physics and army wisdom that shit rolls downhill. Here, the higher up you go, the more batshit it becomes – you might believe that your uncle who spent the last twenty years excavating a subway station in his backyard, on the premise of “you build it and they’ll come,” is why every family gathering turns into a nightmare, but look at the Medici or the Clintons – now, talk about awkward Thanksgivings.

In light of that, I’d say that my new family was somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, meaning that it was pretty damn normal, all things considered. You look to the right – there is Armand, in his glasses and nothing else, locked in a furious silent battle with absent commas and excessive adjectives; you look to the left – there is Rudy, merrily chewing on the pages he’s just finished editing; take a couple more steps and you’ll find me, reading about the prevalence of Masonic symbols in Washington, DC, while probably buck naked too.

Sudden outraged noise? That’s Armand who’s just noticed that a chunk of award-worthy American literature is being quietly and shamelessly devoured. He’ll yank it away and make a lot of fuss but he’ll forgive Rudy soon after – they have this disgusting bro thing going on between them: can do no wrong in each other’s eyes, no matter what. I’m politely excluded from this tango, I’m only good for rumba, apparently.

Yes, this damn thing was still going on, and after Rudy witnessed Armand rumbaing me around the room a couple of times, my reputation was sealed – my dog, I had grounds to believe, didn’t respect me very much. Oh, he’s quite fond of me, sure, but in terms of authority, I had none. Which is why he was so astonished when he saw us messing on the floor one day: I was straddling Armand and tickling him mercilessly, and when I heard some sounds of distress, I thought they were coming from him and didn’t give a damn, to be honest. Then there was an outraged bark, and while Armand is fine with biting, I’d never heard him barking, so I looked around… and saw our dog.

He was peaking from behind the couch, nervously mincing his paws, in total disbelief of what was being done to his alpha.

“Oh, I see,” I snorted, “me being thrown around and plastered over the walls is just fine, but not the big guy here. You ungrateful cur,” I glanced at him again, “where would you be without me?”

“He came out,” Armand managed breathlessly from the floor. “Feels left out...”

“Don’t,” I warned, when he tried to get up. “There’s more where this came from.”

But that was true – Rudy came out. It was an event in itself, because prior to that he used to spend all his time in the dining room, under the table. We dragged him out to go for a walk and he would occasionally come into the kitchen for food, but mostly he kept to himself.

“Well, come here,” I nodded to Rudy, “join the fun. Come on, come on. He’s quite well, your master, see for yourself.”

Rudy approached us slowly, not quite believing my words, I thought. I put a hand on Armand’s chest, Rudy put his paw, checking.

“Told ya,” I rolled my eyes, “he’s breathing.”

Instead of giving me credit for defeating a creature twice my weight, Rudy leaned to him and started licking his face: my poor, poor master, look what that wicked boy has done to you.

“The two of you…” I sighed, “it’s…”

I couldn’t finish - Armand suddenly grabbed my sides and flipped me over, which was apparently very funny, because Rudy eagerly offered his paws for pinning me to the floor.

“Now what?” I stared up at them.

Armand kissed my cheek, Rudy hesitated but followed and licked the other. I found a moment, freed my hands and resumed the tickling, which got me on top again. We kept rolling around like that, and I would glance at Rudy periodically and see something I’d wanted to see for a long time – our dog was happy. After weeks of moping and doubts, he finally let himself believe that he was a part of this family and watching him goofing around with us warmed my heart and strengthened that feeling of rightness inside me – this was where I belonged, this was the life, simple and open, that I’d always wanted to have.

Now, besides being a good team player – if the team was called Armand – Rudy turned out to be a wonderful interlocutor too. Well, no surprises there: first, he doesn’t know English, and second, he’s deaf, which means no interruptions, no questions, no calling you on your bullshit. He’s perfect. You want to finally feel like someone listens to you – talk to your dog. In this house we all do, and at length.

Armand’s bitching to him about everything: starting with the lament that no one reads Faulkner anymore and ending with a protracted disquisition about the crumbling plaster rosette on the ceiling in the living room that needs to be repaired asap, but… it’s cheaper to talk about Faulkner, so it won’t. I, in turn, explain to him how useless and corrupt City Hall is and ask for career advice. Even Lupe joins on occasion and delivers some passionate speech in rapid-fire Spanish.

Rudy listens and looks very concerned. Sure, he’s more concerned about whatever bee got in Armand’s bonnet on any given day, but he honestly tries to be patient with everyone, and I appreciate a good effort.

Another terrific thing about our dog – he’s taller than Armand. Standing on hind legs, his paws on Armand’s shoulders, he can easily put his chin on top of Armand’s head, and the sight is infinitely instagrammable, infinitely. As soon as I saw them performing that trick, I started flooding Armand’s account with said images. There was one in particular that I really wanted to post – we’re all sitting: Rudy’s head on top of Armand’s, Armand’s on top of mine, a pyramid of cuteness if there ever was one – but I couldn’t: it would’ve appeared in Caro’s feed, and my mom was still following Caro. If she saw it, she’d have figured out that “Armand Johnson” and “Armand Hammer” were the same person, and I knew that Instagram was no way of communicating such eye-opening news.

Did Rudy bring us closer? No, I wouldn’t say so. We were as intimate as two people can get, I think, even before he appeared, but he gave us a common cause – he let us take care of him, so that when we worried now, we often worried about the same thing: does he look ok to you? I don’t think he drank at all last night, should we call the vet? Don’t leave your pens on the floor, he might swallow and choke on them!

And he was something just ours. Nothing to do with my work or his, with Michigan, or Colorado, or Austin, or Maine, or anything at all. He was something that belonged to the two of us and helped shape that space we both occupied. I think, even in his mind, Armand stopped calling us “an affair” after we got Rudy – dogs and affairs don’t really go together – and I was glad because I knew it wasn’t a fling, it’d never been.

So it was bliss. I compared it to the end of Cold War and the promised end of history that should’ve come after that.

Spoiler alert – it didn’t.

All those people who woke up on December 27, 1991, the day after the Soviet Union collapsed, feverishly asking themselves, “Fuck, who we’ll be fighting now?” didn’t have to worry after all: the world, as Chomsky once joked, is a dangerous place, and selling F-15s to pugnacious people doesn’t make it less so. By the time Evil Empire began falling apart, we already had Saddam Hussein, and he was good: Saddam could really sell war, so, as a sign of appreciation, we bombed him twice. Then franchise fatigue started, and now everyone’s concerned again: “Middle East ain’t doing the trick anymore, even Fox struggles to explain why we should burn Iran to the ground…”

Relax, breathe. Don’t despair, we’ll find something. You can fill a small-town library with books predicting that it’ll be US against China: The Clash of the Titans, or some such. Lockheed Martin must be creaming their pants, thinking of all the contracts coming their way, if.

But even if – oh, horror! - peace prevails, we can always opt for Cold War 2.0. After all, it’s even more profitable because you can draw it out for fifty years.

So, yes, Fukuyama is nice but Fukuyama was wrong – there’s no end to history. And I don’t know why I believed him, given his track record in prophecies, but I did so I blame him for being unprepared.

The thing is, I looked around – Rudy here, Armand there – and I thought, this is it, the bliss, and they lived happily ever after in the land of Tír na nÓg…

Then…

No, not Saddam Hussein, he’d been long dead by then – another reason I’d become so complacent – no, what happened is we tried to have sex and couldn’t. Well, Armand couldn’t: it was all up, up, up, then it went down slowly, and once it was down, it refused to soar again.

“Would you like some tea?” he inquired politely.

“Tea?” I stared at him. “Well… sure. Of course. I mean… Let’s… I mean… Tea. Not the time for coffee. Sure.”

He rolled off of me, sprung from the bed and marched to the dresser to put on pajama pants. Bad sign. Bad, bad sign, those pajama pants: we often wear less for breakfast, so I immediately realized the gravity of the situation.

“Crackers?”

“Um, Lupe bought muffins yesterday, so, I guess…”

“No muffins. Unhealthy at this hour,” he cut me off and left the room.

I fell back on the pillows and lay staring at nothing.

Just what we fucking needed… What the hell did he expect me to do? One thing life as a straight man doesn’t prepare you for is consoling another guy over a misfire. Usually, you ask anyone and, “Oh, never happened to me, thank god! You?” “No, no, never. I swear.” Then you open any advice column in any paper: “Dear Stacy/Anny/Ginny, does industrial noise cause impotence? Because I can’t get an erection for the last two years.”

You have to wonder, where are all these people writing from? You’re fine, your friends are fine, so where? Must be fake news.

On that note, I was fine. Had never happened to me. Ever. Would’ve been sad if it had at my age. Then again, it’s not like I’d been drowning in sex before I met Armand, so every time I was lucky enough to get some, I was usually ready to blast from the hip.

But the question was, what now? Pat him on the back? Say, you know how it is? Deliver an uplifting message?

Yes, just not so uplifting he’d want to jump off a bridge. Hm, what would I want to hear in his place?

Um, nothing. Absolutely nothing. I can’t get it up and you’re telling me you love me? What’s that supposed to mean? I love me too, quite a lot, but I can’t get it up, so who the fuck cares? They don’t give medals for trying, and fake it until you make it doesn’t apply: you can fake love, can’t fake a hard dick, baby.

I could tell him it didn’t matter, of course. And it didn’t, in the grand scheme of things. But what’s that grand scheme? We weren’t planning an intergalactic war here, just wanted to fuck, and for that little sortie it mattered a lot.

Well, I could say that it’s natural. He’s into all things natural, after all. But he’d probably start thinking about dying again, that being natural too…

Alright, I decided, just don’t be too cheerful and… get rid of your own boner, be fucking sensitive. Like he needs to see it right now.

I closed my eyes and started thinking about Mitch McConnell. I don’t know what other talents Mitch possesses but he’s a born hard-on killer – I was completely flaccid within 30 seconds.

Armand returned with the tray, I turned on CNN, and we sat and stared at Don Lemon who was trying his hardest to reconcile two truths - that Harvey Weinstein was a familiar face at Hillary’s fundraisers and a rapist.

The mood in the room was out-and-out funereal. He quietly sipped his tea, I nibbled on a cracker. Commercial break started, following the usual script of eat-this-so-you’ll-need-that: triple honey burger, new Chili’s combo then stool softener, toilet cleaner, cholesterol-lowering drug and a boner pill.

We watched it all. I thought about changing the channel, but that would mean acknowledging the problem, and Armand didn’t seem to be in acknowledging mood. He finished his tea, took the tray and carried it to the dresser, then said he was going to sleep, turned his back to me and pulled the blanket up to his ears, just when Don Lemon popped up back on the screen.

Should I say something? I thought again. Then I looked at him and decided that I’d just make it worse if I opened my mouth then because I’d have probably said that it was ridiculous, while I knew it wasn’t. Not to him. Not in our situation. So I turned off the TV and started reading, hoping that some Dreiser would knock me out because I didn’t feel sleepy at all.

“What are you reading?” he asked quietly after some time had passed.

“American tragedy.”

“On your phone?”

“On my phone,” I smiled.

“We have the book.”

“I don’t mind.”

Rustling. Some displeased sound.

“I could go read in the living room…”

“It’s ok.”

Half an hour later I glanced at his back and knew he wasn’t sleeping. Silence, bitter and sad, covered the room like dust. I tried to concentrate on the book and couldn’t - the whole situation dumb and painful at the same time.

I was right in not saying anything. Sometimes you need to leave people be, let them lick their wounds in peace. Sure, I could’ve licked them too – would’ve been glad to – but I kept glancing at his forbidding back and concluded that, no, we start talking about it now, who knows what we’ll talk ourselves into? Instead I googled andropause.

The symptoms – depression, irritability, loss of body hair, height loss – didn’t look like our case to me. He hadn’t shrunk an inch since I met him, and irritability? Outside of sudden bursts of emoji hate, Armand was the most phlegmatic individual I knew. If Yellowstone erupted on our watch, my guy would probably sigh and be slightly puzzled by the panicked cries coming from the street. Though, from reading the articles I realized that no one cared about depression and hair loss: so I’ll be bald and sad, so what? You tell me, if my dick will still be working!

Erectile dysfunction is a medical condition, authors tried to reassure, while andropause is quite natural. The bummer was that when you started reading about ED, one of the main causes was depression again.

Was Armand depressed? I looked at him. About what? Could I miss the signs?

So I read about depression but didn’t recognize there the person I lived with. Excessive crying? Overeating or loss of appetite? Apathy? Well, he was admittedly apathetic towards _Thor: Ragnarok _upcoming premiere, but I didn’t remember him losing sleep or wailing, when I said we’d definitely go.

High-functioning depression, Google suggested. Sneakier, but equally dangerous. Basically, you look alright when you definitely aren’t: insomnia, lack of energy, lowered self-esteem, etc., and it can go on for years undetected.

I remembered him playing with Rudy the other day and refused to believe it. He could be melancholy, it’s true, but I was pretty sure joy for him wasn’t a chore. He loved his job, loved our home, we rarely argued. And low self-esteem? Definitely not the case.

“Just look at you! You’re bloody gorgeous!” I told him once reproachfully.

“Yes.”

“Yes??”

“What do you want me to say?” he shrugged. “I know I am.”

Not a trace of irony, either.

I looked at him again, I knew Armand wasn’t sleeping but he wasn’t woke either - at the time when white males competed daily in self-abnegation, my man somehow missed the memo that he should hate himself.

No, they got the causal connection wrong here: it’s not depression that kills erection, it’s no erection that leads to one. If he wasn’t depressed now, he would be tomorrow, poor dear. Look at him, lying there, puffed up like a hedgehog under attack.

“Armand?”

A sigh. “What?”

“You make great tea.”

He was expecting some uplifting remark and relaxed. “Thank you.”

“And your baked eggs, delicious.”

He turned slightly, and I saw his furrowed brow. I switched off the lamp on my side and sidled up to him. “Armand?” I whispered to the back of his neck.

He tensed again. “Um-hm.”

“I think I saw an octopus in our freezer.“

“Lupe,” he let out a breath. “It’s for you, I think.”

“For me?”

“It’s her specialty. She’s from Campeche, knows her way with _mariscos_.”

I chewed my lip. “I need to ask you something. Please, be honest.”

Pause, reluctant nod.

“Have I been fed an octopus while living in this house without my consent?”

He smiled, I believe. “No.”

“You swear?”

“I swear. You’d have noticed – they are hard to miss on a plate.”

“Well, good night then,” I kissed the back of his neck. “Love your cologne.”

“Thank you. You may borrow it.”

“Already am.”

Sigh. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Ok, that was sweet but it got me nowhere – all the next week I received as much romantic attention as a leper. Armand, having been burned once, decided to blow a lot of smoke in my eyes and pretended that everything was hunky-dory, business as usual. It wasn’t, of course, but I went along with it because god help us if it happened again so soon after that first debacle, then I’d have probably been sent back to the maid’s room on some idiotic and frustrating pretext.

Mostly, it was silly. He’d make it look like he was going to kiss my lips and veer off towards my forehead. I’d lecture him again why foreheads were off limits for boyfriends, and he’d use the loophole that I missed and go for the eyebrows. Now, I have no idea who is responsible or in what century but I have eyebrows to spare – he had room for maneuver there.

Fine, I thought, one dry week never killed anyone, there are folks living on space stations for months and months at a time, that must be worse. Next time you’re walking around, look up and shudder – dozens of sexually frustrated people are flying right above you, and all because of that “I want to be an astronaut” uttered in kindergarten. I never wanted this shit, never wanted to be a firefighter either. I once witnessed my mother’s baking glove catching fire and thought, no, fuck this, that’s no way to make a living: lots of smoke, lots of hysteria, what’s in it for me?

To clarify, I love humanity, I want to get a Pulitzer writing about it. But saving it? No, thank you. Want to be saved, call Armand, he used to pull drowning people out of freezing water, so he’ll jump in front of a bus for you too probably; just don’t call me, I grew up thinking that a thumbs-up is enough to stop war in Sudan – hit me up on Twitter and I’m your Batman, but for RL stuff go to some previous generation, to them those two letters still mean “real life.”

Anyway, nothing was happening between the sheets, or on the kitchen table, or on the living room floor. Nothing. If my mom called and asked me about my roommate, she would’ve gotten it right this time - for a week Armand was nothing but. On the upside, I got some work done for a change and finished the Dreiser: not the best reading, I admit, for the #MeToo era then beginning, but a banner book for contraception advocates.

Tomorrow, I thought, tomorrow I’ll jump him, “ready or not, here I come” style. It was becoming tedious, this polite mutual avoidance, and the elephant in the room grew bored and horny, never a good combination.

Tomorrow. Yeah. That was my first mistake. Want to jump someone, do it today, or risk forever keeping your piece in your pants. But if you do, you might get lucky… or straight into #MeToo, so be judicious here.

I weighed all pros and cons, Armand-style, and decided I had a right and even a duty to jump him: he kept giving me these suggestive glances, that I interpreted as yeah, let’s rip some bodices here.

But then “today” I spent glued to the TV screen, following every revolting detail of Weinstein story, and carelessly postponed my forced seduction, thinking, what’s the rush, he’ll be there tomorrow too.

And… he wasn’t.

In the middle of the night his phone started buzzing – another bad sign – he picked it up, listened for a second, then sprung from the bed and ran to the closet.

“What’s going on?” I yawned.

“My daughter is in hospital,” he replied briskly, returning with his travel bag and a pile of clothes.

“Car… What?? But… What are you doing?”

“What do you think I’m doing?” he looked at me angrily, his jeans in his hand.

“Ok, yeah,” I nodded, fighting off sleep. “Yeah… Ok… How can I help?”

“Find me anything that flies to El Paso in the next hour,” he tossed me his phone and ran to the bathroom.

“El Paso?” I frowned. “But what happened?”

He returned with some toiletries and was stuffing them in the bag. “I don’t know. Some bar fight. Beth wasn’t specific.”

“Ok, ok,” I was scrolling through the list of flights. “Should I go with you?”

“Why?” he looked at me, genuinely surprised.

Fifteen minutes and bang – the door slammed behind him. He didn’t even wait for the cab, said he’d catch something on his way to the airport. I don’t remember what I said, I don’t think he heard anything anyway, his eyes looked straight through me, screaming _Caro! Caro! Caro! My daughter! Something’s happened to my child!_

I shivered standing in the hallway and wrapped my arms around my bare midriff. Sudden silence felt like a rough unexpected cut to stillness in a fast-paced movie. I turned around and saw Rudy coming out of the dining room. He looked at me questioningly, then at the door and cocked his head.

“He’s gone,” I told him. “Just like that… Go to sleep, I’ll tell you when I know anything. He’s gone…”

We both looked at the door again.

“Don’t worry,” I came up and stroked his head. “Don’t worry, it’s…”

But I didn’t know what it was so I didn’t finish. I returned to the bedroom and Rudy followed me, sniffing Armand’s side of the bed and again looking at me quizzically.

“We’ll know more in the morning,” I said tiredly. “Go to sleep. Nothing to do right now.”

It was strange waking up without him, coming into the kitchen and not seeing the familiar coffee pot smoking on the stove. If there were no delays, he had to be arriving to El Paso right then, but it was too early to call and ask for news.

Bar fight?

How did Caro get into a bar fight?

I found a packet of instant Nescafe, spilled some dog food for Rudy in his bowl and we breakfasted in silence. I wasn’t going to turn it into a drama, not until I knew what was going on, but our dog with his dour face looked like someone died: Armand walked him in the morning, and Armand wasn’t there, so Rudy was in a serious funk.

“Oh, come on!” Once again I was dragging him through the park after me, “Now you can’t even piss without him?”

Rudy trudged beside me, as glum as if I was leading him to his execution. We reached his favorite landmark – the local dog Tinder, probably the most peed-on tree in Manhattan – and I still saw no enthusiasm.

“Go,” I nudged him forward, “some hot chick must have left you a stream of messages overnight.”

He thought I was disgustingly shallow, I saw it in his eyes – who’d think about fucking in times like these?

“Whatever happens, you’ll always have me,” I smiled reassuringly.

I don’t know why this argument doesn’t sway people or animals – I’m a great consolation prize, if I say so myself; but Rudy wasn’t convinced.

“Look, I can’t go to work until you do your business, and if I leave you like this, you’ll shit on one of his mother’s rugs. Do you think he’ll be glad to see it on his return?”

That produced some effect, which I dutifully scooped up and then led him back home.

“I’ll tell you as soon as I know anything,” I promised to him again and ran to work.

Around ten I called Armand and he told me that Caro was hospitalized with a grade 2 concussion: there was a fight, indeed, someone threw a bottle and it hit her head. He sounded tired and distant, I think I heard Liza’s voice in the background. I asked if Caro was ok, and he was irritated by the question – she had a concussion, no, she wasn’t ok!

Of all the…

I was staring at the blinking cursor on my computer screen and slowly getting depressed. The situation wasn’t good, it didn’t look good and it didn’t feel good. I kept going back to his surprised “why?” in response to my question whether I should go with him, and the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. This “why?” was wrong. We were a family now, but I didn’t feel a part of it at the moment. Whatever happened to Caro, happened to Armand, and whatever happened to Armand, happened to me, the theory went; only the theory didn’t match reality in this case: whatever happened to Caro, I was supposed to shut up and dribble, apparently, because Caro was like an uncomfortable memory that we’d swept under the rug and preferred to ignore, which was stupid and potentially damaging.

She was my ex, she was his daughter and she was my fucking family now, and there would be a lot of situations like this one in the future - would I constantly be sidelined? No, until we dealt with it like the situation demanded, our relationship would always feel temporary, I realized; like a sweet moment we grabbed while there was an opportunity, but that couldn’t survive a thorough examination.

And there was one other thing – timing. It was wrong too. Our mind is treacherous – we take two events that have nothing to do with each other and invent a connection: I said I never wanted to see him again and then he got in a car crash. Or, my daughter was hurt while I was with my young lover. If only…

There is no “if,” but we start seeing it: I should’ve been there, I could’ve prevented it.

No, you couldn’t. It could’ve happened on any other day. Your unthinking words or stupid grudges didn’t cause the car brakes to fail, or a bird to fly into a plane engine; it didn’t define the trajectory of that bottle.

It could’ve happened to Caro in New York, it could’ve happened even if I wasn’t in his life, but I feared he wouldn’t see it that way. He would feel guilty, and what Caro chose to do with this guilt was a big question. She wasn’t manipulative, I thought, but she wouldn’t see it as manipulation if she was still pissed at him, she’d see it as an opportunity to open her father’s eyes to the truth: your selfishness is ruining our family.

That was the worst-case scenario, true, but I took Murphy’s law seriously: if anything _could_ go wrong, everything _would_. If anyone could destroy us, it would be the same person that brought us together, however unintentionally – his daughter.

Which begged the question: what the fuck was I still doing in New York?

God helps those who help themselves, my mother loves to say, or my preferred version: trust in Allah, but tie your camel. And my camel was prancing around Texas - no supervision or guidance - consorting with the bedouins I didn’t trust one bit at the moment.

What the fuck was I still?..

Goethe worried his Gothic brows and agreed: “He only earns both freedom and existence Who must reconquer them each day.”

In other words, no rest for the wicked.

Fuck.

I noticed Stanley, furtively making his way to the coffee machine and a plate of dry cookies that Dear Jeff out of the goodness of his heart provided for us, and started tracking him. By the time I caught up, he was impaled on the horns of that eternal office dilemma: you want to grab five cookies, but any more than two is a conduct unbefitting of a gentleman.

Fuck it, I read on his face, I’m a fucking editor here, and he manfully snatched three, paused, shook his head regretfully and turned, almost spilling the coffee that’d just trickled down for him from the coffee machine, when he saw me.

“What? Ch… What?”

We both looked at his cookies, then our eyes met and it was obvious here was a man who’d fight tooth and nail for his chocolate chip goodies.

“I have a family emergency,” I started without preamble, “my stepdaughter is in hospital: bottle to the head. I need to go to El Paso. Now.”

“What?” he said again. “Your st…”

“Don’t even think about firing me,” I warned. “I’ve never taken a vacation and I’ve been sick for only three days in the last three years. I need to go now, and I don’t know when I’ll be back, but don’t even think about firing me.”

He’d have crossed his arms, but his coffee would’ve spilled over, so he stood like a beggar with that cup towards me, realized it and got pissed immediately. “You’re whining for something big, and when there is something, you’re out, is that so?”

“What can be big? Midterms are next year, and whatever is going on with Weinstein, it won’t touch Trump anyway. Unless you’re telling me the pee tape has surfaced or Donald has a Mexican love child, nothing is worth it for me. I’m out.”

“Halperin.”

“Halperin?” I blinked. “Him too?”

“Yes, at least three accusers. We don’t get it by tonight, CNN will break it on Thursday.”

“You weren’t going to give it to me, be honest. You’re just being difficult.”

“I was. One woman is in Brooklyn, I was going to send you.”

“Fuck… I like Halperin.”

“I like him too,” Stanley nodded. “Had dinner with him just last week.”

“No,” I shook my head, “I can’t. I really can’t. Not now. I have to be in El Paso.”

“Be in El Paso then.”

“Surely, there’ll be others...”

“Surely.”

“Stanley.”

“That’s news, Chalamet: worse than death – won’t kindly stop for you. You want to be out, there’s nothing easier in this business.”

“I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

“Safe travels,” he said dismissively and went back to his office. I grabbed a cookie and ran to my desk, got my bag and phone, threw on my jacket and darted towards the elevator.

Saying you needed to go to El Paso was easier than doing it. First of all, there was money. Ok, fuck it, I said goodbye to a debt-free February and started looking for a flight. There was nothing direct in the next four hours, so I got the one via DC. By the time, I was on the street, this problem had been solved, but the other remained – Rudy.

I couldn’t leave him and I couldn’t take him with me. I thought about Lupe but knew what she’d say – she had three other clients besides Armand and me, and she didn’t have time to walk dogs for us. Good thing about Lupe, though, was that she had daughters, whose hearts, I suspected, were crushed when it was revealed that “Don Armando” played for a different team.

I had Monica following me on Armand’s Instagram, so I sent her a message, fervently hoping she’d read it immediately. She did, I got a reply only ten minutes later: she was very sorry, but she couldn’t help me, she had to work on some paper for her Business Psychology course.

I asked for Isabel’s number. Lupe had another daughter, the panty thief; of course, you couldn’t say it around Lupe, but I thought it was too hilarious not to bring up periodically.

Isabel turned me down too. If Armand was straight, you’d sing a different song, I rolled my eyes. But where love fails, greed prevails – as soon as I said I’d pay her, she agreed: panties, when you buy them, aren’t cheap, I suppose.

We ended up on a hundred fifty for two days of walking our dog, with another fifty for every additional day. Armand had shown me where the emergency stash was, and I thought I could be generous.

She promised to meet me at our place in an hour so that I could introduce her to Rudy, and I rushed home, where the most unpleasant task awaited – explaining to my dog that I was abandoning him too, briefly but still abandoning.

I didn’t wait for the elevator and climbed the stairs two at a time. Once inside, sweaty and out of breath, I ran to the dining room, yanked out a chair and climbed under the table, where Rudy usually held court during the day.

Rudy stared at me in amazement.

“Rudolph,” I was breathing heavily, “be a man now, you’ll need it. I’m leaving too. No, don’t look at me like that. I’m… I’m going to get him back, ok? It’s a long story, I’ll explain some other time, but I feel it’s important that I go now. And I can’t take you with me.

“No, I can’t. If pancreatitis didn’t kill you, American airlines surely will. Have you heard what United did to that giant rabbit? Well, it’s unclear what they did but he couldn’t bear it anyway, poor bastard; so no, you stay here.

“Another bad news is that you won’t stay alone. I asked Isabel, you don’t know her, but she probably smells like Lupe, so it won’t be a shock to you. The thing is, she’s fifteen, I think, or just about. I know, I know, but please, I’m begging you, don’t bite her in the ass, or Lupe will drop cyanide into my lasagna.

“I’ll be back in a couple of days, I’m pretty sure, and if everything goes well, Armand will be too. No, no, shush, he’ll be back anyway, but I just have to make sure… No, I’m not paranoid. I’m not, ok? I’m just… vigilant. Yes, I’m vigilant. Eyes on the prize, you know? It’s just… God, have you ever dated someone and then their father? No? Well, don’t judge then.

“But I’ll be back, and he’ll be too. And you just… you take it like a man, ok? Shit happens, and when you have children, it happens all the time, and Armand has a daughter and… and I slept with her. Long time ago.

“Don’t worry though, it’ll be ok,” I nodded and got from under the table.

By the time Isabel arrived, I’d already packed a couple of t-shirts and a toothbrush – all you need to go rescue your prince or princess – and was anxiously looking at my watch, nervous I’d miss my flight. I didn’t hear her coming, but I smelt her, and if I did then Rudy must have too – the amount of perfume that girl used was prodigious: you opened the door and were literally swept away by a supersweet Nina Ricci tsunami. She wasn’t thrifty with make-up either, or the acrylic nails.

“Thank you for doing this,” I managed, my eyes watering.

“No problem,” she looked around, then planted a generous kiss on my cheek.

I showed her to the dining room and pointed at our Dane under the table. Her eyes lit up, Rudy stared.

“Can you take my picture with him?” she handed me her phone.

“Well, I… Ok,” I nodded and dove under the table, where Rudy, intuiting what was coming, started scuttling back immediately.

“Be a man,” I hissed and dragged him to the light.

I took a snap of them together but didn’t return her the phone because it was clear we’d spend another twenty minutes while she was deciding where to post it and what caption to add.

“Please, be patient with him,” I told her. “He’s old, you know? He’s around 60 in human years, so he’s a bit slow. Just follow his pace when you walk him and he won’t give you any trouble. He loves smelling things, and that’s fine, but stop him from swallowing anything, ok?

“And please, don’t feed him anything you’re eating. I once gave him a half of my muffin and was rewarded with diarrhea for my troubles. He has a special diet, I’ll show you his food in the kitchen – only that and water, nothing else, ok? Check that his bowls are full when you leave him, and that’s it.

“Another thing – people. You go out with a dog like that, a lot of folks get curious and may approach you – again, most are fine, but there are exceptions. I once ran into a guy whose toddler wanted to ride Rudy and the father seemed completely ok with it. So, use your judgment – he’s a big dog, but he isn’t a horse.”

She kept looking at her phone in my hand, so I reluctantly gave it back and of course lost her to Instagram immediately.

“Isa!”

“What?” she didn’t even look up from the screen.

“Don’t snoop through our nightstands.”

That got her attention, and for the first time I regretted we didn’t have some huge spiked dildo stuffed somewhere for her to find – it would’ve been hilarious to watch her interact with Armand afterwards.

“Not interested in your love life,” she huffed.

Yeah, she’ll check it, I nodded to myself. The infatuation with Nina Ricci would end as soon as she found that caramel flavored lube Armand was partial to.

“Alright,” I smirked, “here’s three hundred bucks: half is yours, another – for an emergency.” I laid the bills on the table. “Here’s contacts of Rudy’s vet,” I added the card on top. “Don’t panic, he’s ok,” I nodded to Rudy, “I’m just trying to think of everything that can go wrong. But if he’s vomiting, or the poop is green...”

She wrinkled her nose.

“He’s fine,” I told her again. “But if you’re worried, don’t hesitate to call me or his doctor, ok? Any questions?”

“I didn’t know how big he was,” she folded her arms.

It wasn’t difficult to follow – it was a shakedown. “It’s two days tops – a hundred fifty is my limit. I’ll be back by Thursday.”

“Minimum wage is fifteen bucks.”

“In Bernie Sanders’s dreams.”

“You know how much pet sitters cost in this area?” she smiled sweetly.

“Isa…”

“Two days – two hundred.”

That’s the art of bluffing, my dear girl – don’t overplay your hand. “I know how much pet sitters cost here,” I told her, and her smile faded. “Look, the spirit is admirable but wrongly applied – use this experience for your future wage negotiations: no one will give you more as soon as they know you’re ready to work for less.”

“My mom gets more!”

“Your mom _does_ more,” I sighed. “It’s 1-1.5 hours of work a day, I’m giving you a very fair price, and I’m late for my flight, so the bargaining is over.”

I gave her the spare keys, grabbed my bag, said goodbye to Rudy and rushed to LaGuardia, using my time in the cab to find out what hospital Caro was in.

I didn’t miss my flight after all, but for a moment there I wished I did. It’s like they say: when it rains, it pours… I looked at her smartly coiffed blonde head, partly hidden behind a glossy magazine and… You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! Not only a middle seat, but _this_ too?

“You going to stand here all day?” some guy pushed me, lumbering to his seat.

She raised her eyes, saw me and blinked, surprised. We both looked at an empty seat beside her, waiting for me.

“Really?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “But completely unintentionally. I can ask them to find something else for me…”

“Why?”

Right. Why, indeed?

“I don’t want to be awkward.”

“Don’t be.”

Well, hell. I stuffed my bag into the overhead bin and took my seat beside her. She looked good – silver gray blouse, matching pants, a shade darker, thick cuff bracelet on an elegant wrist and a pearl pendant around a beautiful pale neck. Slim, long-legged, prickly – Armand had a type it looked like: if I was a chick, I could dye my hair and pass for Estelle, my ass wouldn’t win competitions either.

She put down her magazine and was watching me.

“We’re together,” I blurted out.

“I know,” she nodded. “I saw you on the street once. You didn’t see me. You… looked together.”

“He would’ve married you. If I wasn’t in the picture, he would’ve married you. And you would’ve divorced a couple years later. Even if I wasn’t in the picture.”

“Maybe,” she replied quietly. “Maybe not.”

“I should ask for a different seat…”

“Why? What scares you more, that I’ll bite or that I’ll cry?”

“Please don’t cry,” I must have sounded terrified.

She chuckled without humor. “Men are so predictable.”

“Yes, thank god. Try dating a chick – like piloting a Chinese aircraft: instructions included but all of them useless.”

“Chinese manage somehow.”

“Given their government’s attitude towards same-sex relationships, they have no option, I’d say.”

“So you’re disgustingly unreservedly happy now, I take it?”

I thought for a second. “Well, yes. Most of the time.”

“Yes, you should change the seat,” she rolled her eyes.

“Too late.”

We were taking off and were advised to fasten our seat belts. I thought the advice was sound, what with my flight companion. When the flight attendant came with the snacks, we both asked for something stronger than coffee but it was a short flight and we didn’t get any. Instead we were given sparkling water and small bags of mixed nuts. Estelle loved almonds and I cashews, so, after some obligatory bickering, we shared. It shocked even us.

“How’s Cory?” I asked.

She looked at me suspiciously. From Armand, I knew she was working for Cory Booker now. I had nothing against him, but I thought he had no chance against Trump in 2020. It was going to be Alien vs. Predator, and I couldn’t see a second set of jaws hiding behind Booker’s friendly smile. (Now, Biden has a lot of teeth, and most of them loose, but I didn’t know it then, so I didn’t think he had a chance either.)

“We need a mutant of our own,” I told her. “Someone who’d piss acid and fuck you in the face, if the need arises. A winner.”

“We need a return to decency.”

“We can deal with decency from the White House, and hope and change won’t get us there this time.”

“Sure, and your acid-pissing winner is an old socialist from Vermont, right?”

“People like him.”

“Mostly people who haven’t earned a dime in their life and rely on their pops for everything. We run with Sanders – no independent will vote for him, he’s too radical for them, but those Republicans who sat out last time, put off by Trump, they’ll come out in droves just to stop a Commie from getting into Oval Office. No, Sanders is the worst option we have, especially while economy is booming.”

“There’s Warren too, a chick.”

“Why are you saying it like that?”

“Like what?”

“What does the fact that she’s a woman has to do with anything?”

“Come on, Estelle, we aren’t on the record here, drop it.”

She paused. “Alright, there’s one woman who can win an election in this country.”

“Oprah,” I nodded.

“Oprah?” she huffed. “No. Megyn Kelly.”

I did a double take. Maybe high altitudes affected her brain, who knew? “Kelly? Are you serious?”

“Yes. Whip-smart, yet you still want to fuck her - that’s the only type of woman who can win here. So, yes, Megyn Kelly or someone like her.”

“Hillary won the popular vote.”

“Against the most incompetent candidate in history. She’d have lost there too against any other Republican.”

“Wow, you’ve changed.”

“Took off my rose-tinted glasses.”

She said it evenly, without affectation, and in that moment I regretted that she didn’t start crying when she saw me: you leave a trail of broken hearts in your wake, and you never know the shape they’ll grow back into. She wasn’t a lily of the valley when I first met her, but I knew she had tears in her then, and now they seemed all spent. She was over Armand, I didn’t doubt it, but I hoped she wasn’t over love too. It’s a very lonely place where there are no tears left.

She read my face and turned away to the window. We were reaching DC. I glanced at the cashews still in my hand and suddenly had no appetite. Our gloomy political capital peaked from the clouds and its shadows were sliding over her stoic features.

“Estelle,” I said quietly. She heard me but didn’t move. “I know people think I’m an idiot when I say sappy things like this, but… there’s someone there for you, _only _for you. And… when you find it, don’t push it away, your happiness. It’s such a scary thing, but… don’t push it away.”

She didn’t reply, and I regretted saying anything. It must have sounded to her as utterly absurd as Trump sitting in his golden tower and claiming he understands the problems of the working people.

We landed. The people started getting up, I reached for my bag and heard her voice.

“Tim.”

I looked at her, she was playing with the corner of her magazine and didn’t meet my eyes at first.

“Jeremy Brooks. AsproTech. Look into it.”

“Brooks?”

“Just look into it.”

I nodded and she turned back to the window. I was doodling the name in my notebook, while waiting for the connecting flight. Jeremy Brooks, Democratic Representative from New York, I briefly met him when he was back in town, begging local donors for some reelection money. AsproTech didn’t ring a bell, though. I googled it: facial recognition technology, body cams for cops, some other dystopian gizmos that’d bring us one step closer to a surveillance state, much admired by those who thought Orwell was writing “sci-fi.”

I had no idea what she wanted or what her angle was, but that there was one I had no doubt – no one tells a journalist to “look into” something, unless there’s something to be gained from it.

Anyway, I had no time to investigate further then, and I confess, boarding the next plane, I was expecting to run into another ghost of Christmas past and braced myself for the impact: Caro’s girlfriend, my one-night stand from the Goop days – the possibilities were fucking endless. With my current luck, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a pilot decided to share with us a story about the wild times he had with Armand in the 90s.

But no, I could enjoy my frantic unplanned leap across the country in peace this time, rewatching _Dunkirk_ . And yeah, fuck you, Nolan isn’t overrated, not one bit, still going strong. They should’ve given him Best Picture that year and they didn’t, because fish-banging blew everyone’s mind suddenly. So fuck the Oscars too: make _Citizen Kane_ – they’ll award _How Green Was My Valley;_ try _Raging Bull_ – they’ll go for _Ordinary People_. Christ! I mean, I’m glad for my man Robert, but he’s no fucking Scorsese, you know?

And Scorsese? After _Taxi Driver_ , _Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas_ and _Casino_ , Best Director for… _The Departed_?!

Or _Driving Miss Daisy?_More like Driving Blacks Crazy with white people’s wishful thinking.

Or…

To clarify, I don’t care about the Oscars, no one cares about the Oscars anymore, but… Not fair, is all I’m saying. Not fucking fair.

I was gnawing through another bag of mixed nuts and thinking about that: how best and brightest are often recognized as such only when it’s too late. Take me and Armand – he had no idea I was coming but I didn’t expect a thank you. Estelle was right there – men are so predictable: it would be another_ what the hell, Timoth__ée?_

Ungrateful camel! Pretty, of course, but so callous. Wasn’t cheap to get to El Paso. I wasn’t invited, sure, but you start waiting until you’re invited, you’ll never get anywhere.

And I had to leave Rudy, too. Rudy wouldn’t miss me, I knew, but it was a sacrifice nonetheless. And my job, my career opportunities…

God, I hoped Caro was ok. She had to be. Concussion is no big deal, right? I skimmed through a list of possible consequences: depression, irritability, heightened sensitivity to noise… Perfect, just perfect! She’d been pissed off before, now she’d be depressed too. On the other hand, “memory problems” - that wasn’t so bad, maybe she’d forget we ever dated? Would be nice.

Ah, children… She gets hit in the head, but you get the headache.

I thought about calling my mom, saying thank you – now I knew what she was going through all these years. Frightening stuff!

And I? Twenty-five, I had no idea how to raise a child, I needed guidance – and what? No emotional support from anyone! No attempt to empathize! I could be careless and free, but I chose to take responsibility for my family – no one asked me to, but I took it – fighting this uphill battle alone, all alone…

I glanced into the window at my reflection – gaunt, exhausted, old before my time. At this rate, not long until I couldn’t get it up either. I thought about my dad then. Poor devil. I should call him too, say something nice before I dropped Armand on him.

Ten minutes to six, I landed in El Paso finally. Palms, stucco, dust, trucks and stetsons, El Paso was flat, hot and looked deserted compared to New York. Running out of colors, someone glanced at the palette, found beige there and dumped it all on this piece of land, so that occasional tired tree looked like an explosion of green fire. To a snow-dwelling creature like me, it was a thoroughly distressing sight.

Michigan is too much sky, New York is too much concrete, here it was too much land, everywhere, in all directions, and all of it sere. Plus, no one told the local sun that it was damn October, so, three minutes in the cab, I started sweating like I was eleven and seeing tits for the first time. Yes, I needed to get to Armand asap: daughter in hospital or not, I knew he’d never travel without a moisturizer.

“Holocaust Study Center,” the driver said conversational-like and nodded to some surprisingly posh building we were passing.

You never know how to take these remarks: is it a local landmark or...? And not to sound like a twat, but who’d study Holocaust in fucking El Paso and… why? I mean, you start from the airport, you think, alright, soon it’ll be downtown, only to realize fifteen minutes later that, no, there’s no up or down here, that’s all there is. What you see is what you get, basically.

Anyway, it turned out the guy had a stepdaughter too, only his was still in diapers and smart enough to keep away from bar fights. I decided to test local hospitality and told him I had a husband – in my mind, I had – he didn’t explode in a homophobic tirade, but the conversation dried up after that. Everything does in this climate.

The hospital looked like where I’d put a Holocaust Study Center, frankly, but the woman on reception was very nice and even smiled. She asked me if I was a boyfriend and I told her, no, a relative – it was high time to put this misconception to bed.

Caro was on the second floor, visiting hours ran until 7.30, and there was a gift shop in the right wing, but I was pretty sure Caro ended up here as a result of her dislike of everything right wing, so I didn’t think she’d appreciate anything from that place.

I expected to bump into Armand right away and was already preparing some calming bullshit for his ears, but instead, when I turned to the right hallway, I saw Richard, of all people. And it pissed me off, because what, Richard was more family than me now? I bet Liza didn’t ask him why when he volunteered to go with her.

I asked him where everyone was and he told me that Armand and Liza went to grab a bite after spending the whole day here, and he’d just delivered a couple of magazines Caro asked him to buy for her. That was very good news – if Armand had appetite, Caro couldn’t be critical.

Well, she looked horrible but was pretty much alive.

“What are you doing here?”

Fuck. No memory loss.

“Came to visit you. We’re all very worried,” I said approaching her bed.

She was pale, irritated, stripe of gauze around her head with a thick pad over her left temple. “Dad didn’t tell me you were here.”

“I’ve just arrived.”

“Look, I...”

Before she had a chance to kick me out, I retrieved a box of cookies from my bag and showed it to her. She recognized the brand, of course she did, she loved it and I used to buy it for her when we were dating. There was a small bouquet of flowers by her bed and a tray with juice and water, but otherwise she was left to the mercy of the hospital kitchen, it looked like. So, yes, she wanted those cookies and she could stomach even me to get them.

I gave her the box, she made a show of weighing and smelling it.

“Alright,” Caro nodded reluctantly. “Sit.”

I grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the bed. You’d think being what we used to be to each other, it’d be easy to start a conversation, but that wasn’t the case. I loved her, once, she loved me – decades later, brushing past each other, that’d still be the first thing on our minds: I loved this person, once.

“How are you?”

“Lucky,” she smiled drily. “Half an inch lower, the doctor said, and the damage could be permanent. As it is, couple of stitches, headache, nausea. I’ll be released in 3-4 days probably.”

“What was the fight about?”

“Trump.” There was a challenge in her voice.

“You still believe I voted for him?”

“I still don’t know. I didn’t know you at all, did I? But then… I didn’t know my own father, so that pales in comparison.”

“How fortunate then that he’s still alive. Not too late to ask all your questions,” I smiled.

“Oh, I did,” she snorted. “He cheated on my mom, did you know?”

I didn’t want to go there, but it was too late to turn the conversation around. “We don’t really talk about it.”

“Yes,” she looked at me pensively, “you _know_.”

“Look, I don’t doubt that he made some questionable choices in h...”

“Questionable choices?” she interrupted. “Wearing overalls to your wedding is a questionable choice. He’s a fraud, Tim. His whole life… one big lie.”

“You weren’t there.”

“Oh yes, I was. If he convinced you he was a victim of anything, I pity you. Want to predict the future, look into the past – I’d think again, if I were you.”

“Did you?” I sighed. “Did you look into the past? His life didn’t start the day he married your mother, you know?”

“Oh, I know what’s coming – some lecture about the history of homophobia in this country. Everyone starts blaming the times when they are cornered, but times were the same for everyone, yet there were decent people and there were scoundrels. There always are.”

“True. So you think that he’s a scoundrel? Really?”

“Do you know that you’re the second longest relationship I’ve ever had?”

That came out of left field, and I stared at her not knowing what to say. “What about Dame?” I mumbled.

“Dame politely informed me that interracial couples are still polling poorly, so it’d be best to look realistically at what we had and take into consideration both our futures. That’s what about Dame.”

“I’m...”

“Sorry. Yeah. Me too.”

“Well, Obama ditched his white girlfriend too at some point...”

“Nice to know. I should send her a friend request.”

“Caro...”

“What? I’m sad, angry and lonely. _What?_”

“But not because of your father.”

She looked at me for a long time. “If I’d stayed in New York…”

I found her hand and squeezed it gently. “If you’d stayed in New York, the dates would’ve changed, not the events.”

“We could’ve been married by now.”

“No,” my voice sounded pleading, “no.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t do this. You’re making a mistake. I’m not the one. Not for you.”

“For him?”

“Yes!”

“But it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t _make sense_, Tim!”

“It doesn’t have to,” I said gently. “It’s… Like quantum physics, it doesn’t have to make sense to you or anyone else, it just is.”

“His daughter’s fiancé…” her hand slipped from mine. “Yep, that’s some questionable choice for you.”

“Look, I… I know, I’m feeling it too, in a way, this pull, this… It’s the nostalgia, Caro. You’re looking at me and you see… you’re remembering the best parts, I remember them too. I promise, I remember them all. But…”

“Stop it!”

“No, no. Dame didn’t steal you from me, and your father didn’t steal me from you. We knew what we were doing. We couldn’t keep it, the two of us, it’s no one’s fault, we just couldn’t keep it; and when we let go, we let go so easily…”

“_You_ did! Don’t even… You’d let go long before that day in Austin!”

“Because I knew!” I almost knocked down the chair when I stood up. “I knew! I… I wanted to be happy and I knew I’d never be happy with you!”

“Then why did you ask me to marry you?”

“Why did you say yes?”

Snap!

You didn’t lie to her, you remember them all, all your moments together, it just doesn’t change anything, not any more, not for a long time. If it weren’t for her father, if we didn’t meet in 2016, if I weren’t from Michigan, if she weren’t from New York… Too late, doesn’t change anything. Love, fragile night flower that couldn’t survive the dawn. A repetition of goodbye, old sadness hitting you again unexpectedly. No matter the actors’ antics, the final act is still there: they die, over and over again, sharp little pieces falling into place, pearl necklaces turning into nooses, that’s why people applaud, that’s how it becomes a classic.

She threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I thought it’d be over by now. You and him. I hoped I’d never see you again…”

I hesitated, then came up and sat on the edge of her bed. “One day I’ll be 10th  or 15th  on your list, it won’t matter then.”

“I’m hideous, right?” she looked at me.

“No,” I smiled, “you’re beautiful. You’ll always be beautiful.”

“They shaved it, here,” she pointed to her temple. “There’ll be a scar.”

“Scars don’t hurt. One good thing about them.”

It sounded trite and was, she rolled her eyes, wincing in pain, and lightly rubbed her forehead.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” I apologized.

“Doesn’t matter,” she waved me off. “You know what upsets me? My whole childhood I’d been begging for a dog, and now he gives it to you…”

“He didn’t give me anything,” I chuckled. “I got it myself. He was horrified at first.”

“Well, he gave me a rabbit at least.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Cutest little thing, died of a heart attack when my mom dropped something next to his cage.”

“That’s… sad.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“No, no, I…” I did laugh then. “Sorry, sorry.”

She tsked disapprovingly but her eyes were smiling. “Heartless.”

“No, but… My dad hunts them – I’m used to seeing them on my plate, you know?”

“Oh, God, right,” she groaned. “Your mom knows how to skin a deer, she told me.”

“She does,” I nodded proudly.

“Yeah, and you can’t watch _Exorcist _without Xanax.”

“That’s a low blow,” I shook my finger at her.

We looked at each other smiling.

“Dame is an idiot,” I said quietly.

“And you?”

“And I’m… gay.”

“That’s 90% of the dating pool, right there.”

A silent look, her hesitant hands, I took them, kissed her knuckles gently. She watched me, her shoulders dropping. A lot of roads to get here; in the end, _goodbye_ lasted longer than _I love you_. Clean breaks, has anyone ever had them? No matter what you two are made of, when it comes to letting go axes and chainsaws are applied, leaving jagged edges bleeding with regret: you failed, you failed, you failed… You were given a fortune and squandered it away.

“I need a favor,” I looked at her.

“Yes,” she snorted, “you do.”

I took a moment to arrange my thoughts. If she was someone else, I would’ve probably opted for a load of horseshit about forgiveness, but life taught me to respect female intelligence.

“Caro,” I said, “please, don’t be a bitch to him.”

She looked at our joined hands. “That’s why you came, right? To fight his battles.”

“No. And I’m not asking you to go to some father-daughter dance with him or have hours-long heart-to-hearts over the phone, if you don’t feel like it; but come on, all he needs is ‘I’m glad you called, Dad,’ from time to time,” I squeezed her hands. “You can do it. If I can, then you can too.”

“What do you mean?”

I shook my head. “You think my dad is a picnic?”

“Your dad is very nice,” she frowned.

“Right,” I snorted. “You saw him once in your life and while he was trying his hardest to make a good impression on you. I mean, sure, he’s nice and I love him, and all that, but it’s not always easy. It never is. He drives me nuts sometimes, and my mom too. And my mom drives _him_ nuts, and they are both gobsmacked at the things _I_ do. That’s family for you.”

She turned away. “I don’t know how to talk to him anymore, Tim.”

“Well… I don’t know. Capitalize, for starters.”

“What??”

“Ah, you know, capital letters to begin a sentence. And period marks,” I nodded, “yeah, he’s downright obsessed with them.”

She smiled. “Yes. I forgot. I haven’t texted him in a while.”

“Try, maybe. He’s basically illiterate by modern standards, of course, but he can still figure out what ILY means.”

She made a face, but a good face, the one I could remember too: three inches away from me, on a pillow. I’d say something like that, make her roll her eyes, and would be called an idiot, would see I said the right thing. Would know if I leaned closer there’d be lips waiting…

“Come on,” I whispered, nudging her chin lightly, “come on, baby.”

She was smiling, our foreheads touched. I didn’t even think about it – intimacy, once learned, erases the distance between two people; you’ve crossed that line so often, you forget where each other’s personal space begins. I didn’t think about it, because I wasn’t used to – I’d never had to think before touching her. Tip of her nose, tip of mine, she giggled, I grinned.

I heard the door opening, turned around, still smiling, and saw Armand standing there. He was startled for a moment and then, before I had a chance to get up and step away from the bed shrugging awkwardly_ hey, it’s not what you think, _his eyes had frozen over, traveled from me to his daughter: a shudder went through his face, he couldn’t hold her gaze.

No one said a word; the usual hospital noise rushed through the open door. Silence was broken by Liza who walked in and stopped, noticing me.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she frowned, glancing at Armand, who kept looking at the place on the bed where I’d been sitting just a moment earlier.

“Couldn’t get away earlier,” I shrugged. “Work.”

“Your chai,” Liza raised a cup in her hand to show Caro, went and put it on the bedside table. “Oh, Glaser’s. Nice,” she nodded, seeing my box of cookies.

“I’ve been to the bar,” Armand cleared his throat. “They found your iPod.” He approached to give it to her, but didn’t step back, effectively hiding me behind him.

Richard arrived, the doctor popped in to ask Caro if the dizziness she’d complained about subsided. We stayed until the visiting hours were over for the day, then wished her good night and left.

“Where are you staying?” Armand asked, still not looking at me, after we’d said goodbye to Richard and Liza in front of the hospital.

“Really?” I glanced at him.

We started walking. It felt like July here, because it was July here in terms of temperature. I had no idea where we were going, so I just followed him.

“What’s up?”

“What’s up?” he turned to me sharply. “Oh, nothing. I didn’t sleep last night, spent two hours in police precinct this morning, then had a long argument about who’s financially responsible for the mess in the bar, then my ex-wife’s boyfriend decided it was appropriate time to pitch me another of his ludicrous ideas and ask for 50 grand seed money, and then I come here and see you all over my daughter. _Again._”

“Well, it wasn’t what it looked like,” I bit my lip, hoping sheer cuteness would do it.

Nah.

He began walking again. “Rudy?”

“In good hands.” _Hopefully. _“You’re jealous.”

“Yes.”

“And pissed.”

“Yes.”

“Because you’re jealous.”

“Yes.”

He retrieved a cigarette case from his shirt pocket and smelled it, quiet relief of an asthmatic finally getting to his inhaler blooming on his face.

“Save it for Thanksgiving,” I rolled my eyes.

“Why?”

“We’re going to Michigan.”

“No.”

“Yes. Let you deal with _my_ family for a change.”

“Would you recommend the same… hands-on approach?”

“No, I wouldn’t. We’ll be lucky, if my father doesn’t shoot you on sight. Armand?”

“Umm?”

“I wasn’t all over your daughter.”

“Aha.”

“Umm, aha – English degree in action.”

“I just don’t understand, I left you in New York...”

“I’m not a suitcase to just leave me!”

He narrowed his eyes at me, I matched him. “Why_ the hell_ are you here?”

Told ya? “Because _you_ are!”

He looked around, seemingly amazed, and began walking again. We turned to a lively street with several bars here and there, it was getting darker but the street lights, already on, looked sickly yellow in the early evening. From the open windows across the road, the voice of Tom Grennan spilled into the air: _This life, I chose My open wounds they show That memory lane is like a winding road…_

I heard a click, turned and saw Armand lighting up a cigarette. Instantaneously, it brought back images from a different time, almost a different life…

“Do you remember?” I smiled.

He glanced at me sideways. “What?”

“A year ago… yes, a year ago, probably to a day, we were walking… Your book party, something about butterflies or fireflies, the guy… fuck, the name escapes me… but… you were smoking. I didn’t know then. I think I jizzed my pants just looking at you.”

He grunted, still irritated but now flattered too, so it came out softer than he probably intended.

“What happened to him?”

“To whom?”

“That guy, the author.”

“Working on a sequel.”

“I thought it was a memoir.”

“It sold well.”

Too warm, he was carrying his blazer slung over his shoulder. I sighed and slipped my hand into his jeans pocket, would’ve gone for the back one, but it was still Texas.

“You know what I was thinking about then?”

“Me.”

The nerve. But, “Yes, you. Specifically, I kept picturing you luring me into some dark alley and having your wicked ways with me, against a brick wall. And I would’ve let you, scout’s honor.”

“I’ll go back to a pack a day with you, I swear.”

“It must be hot, though,” I nodded to myself, ignoring him. “A tryst. Real tryst. Like_ 9 __½ __weeks,_ only less water and acrobatics. Did you use to beat off to young Mickey Rourke? Ah, of course you did…”

Light breeze blew the smoke back into his eyes and he blinked rapidly. “She ends up in a psychiatric ward, you know?”

“Who?”

“The heroine. They forgot to mention it in the movie version.”

That’s just like him. You give him _Aladdin_ or _Three Little Pigs_, he’ll ruin it for you too. Nothing’s sacred anymore.

“And it’s hardly hot,” he continued. “It’s cold, actually. And there’s trash, and rats, and the brick is rough. Someone peaks through the curtains and calls the police… I was arrested like this, once.”

I opened my mouth, had trouble closing it. “In an alley?”

“Yes,” he rolled the cigarette between his fingers. “Classic pants around your ankles scenario. Donated to him all my cash, the watch my mother gave me; he punched me in the kidneys, advised to be a good boy from then on.

“I was lucky I wasn’t in the uniform, otherwise he wouldn’t have let it go so gently. It was code red all across the board then.”

“And if he’d reported you?”

“Court-martial, undesirable discharge. If my father got involved - and he would’ve - they would’ve slapped me with ‘dishonorable,’ just out of principle. You could try ‘queen for a day,’ sure, they’d’ve let you stay, but then - watch your back: your own guys would’ve hanged you by the balls later.”

“Queen for a day?”

“Drunk, didn’t know what I was doing, never happened before, never will again…” He snorted, looking at me, “Scout’s honor.”

I took his free hand, kissed his fingers. “I’m staying with you, of course. I didn’t come here to sleep in a different hotel.”

He flicked away the stub, neatly hitting the nearby trash can; his thumb, when he pulled down my lower lip, smelled strongly of tobacco. “Don’t touch my daughter again. Ever again. There are rivers you can’t cross twice.”

“It’s not like that between us,” I whispered. “It’s just memories.”

Hotel room was clean and utilitarian, marred by several cutesy landscapes on the walls that tried to make it feel like a home and failed. He took off my shirt, his hands ran down my arms, circled the wrists, let go. I kissed his chin, surging upwards, trying to get closer, the lack of him suddenly so sharp in my every cell. It wasn’t the time or the place, he stopped me, and we lay on the bed, facing each other. I didn’t know the words so I started kissing his face - his cheeks, his nose, his forehead.

God, his beautiful face… I started and couldn’t stop.

He cupped my jaw, watched me, as if memorizing every feature, and that almost smile, again… I made a sound, keening, my cock hurt for him so much. He kissed me then, long, slow, faint-deep kiss of a swimmer who can hold his breath for minutes at a time, but it didn’t lead to sex, didn’t lead anywhere, he simply rolled me over and pinned me to the bed with his body, covering everything he could, territorial.

I gasped and relaxed. I missed his weight, only a week, but I missed it already, and his steady breathing in my ear, and the feel of his chest hair against my bare skin. I couldn’t imagine living in the time when it was a crime, having him like that. I would’ve gone mad.

She doesn’t understand, I thought guiltily, clutching him to me, she just doesn’t understand how you can go mad: this simplest of things denied to you and you go mad, you start lying, you start stealing; you live terrified, of loving against God, of dying without love. Maybe you become a scoundrel, maybe they turn you into one: you were doing good but – snap! - that shoulder line, that stubble – such a nice boy and selling his soul for a stranger’s touch behind a dumpster.

I licked the shell of his ear, traced the ridge of his spine with my fingers, I kept flashing back to the sharp look the hotel clerk gave us, handing Armand the key card. Disgust? Envy? I was so lucky that it didn’t matter, not any more, not since Lawrence v. Texas.

He propped himself on his elbows and was looking at me, serene eyes of a cat that’d just ravaged your pantry. I decided it was time to pop the really important question.

“What’s your kink?”

“Don’t have one.”

Bullshit, unadulterated. There was something. God knows what, but there was something. I just couldn’t figure it out. But I had no doubt – you can’t spend fifty years on this earth and not come up with something outré to get off to. Granted, rumba is pretty fucking weird, but it’s a lot of hassle as a foreplay and probably the last thing you’d bring into a clandestine affair. What then?

“I’m pretty sure it has something to do with this… obsession of yours to press me into every available surface.”

“When have I ever done that?” asked the guy, currently imprinting me into the mattress.

“The way I see it,” I explained patiently, “if we’re on the sofa, I’m _in _the sofa; if we’re on the carpet, I’m _in _the carpet; and if we’re in bed… well, I’m so in bed, I’m simply embedded. I see a pattern here, don’t you?”

“It’s all in your head.”

“No doubt,” I croaked. “But if you tell me, I’ll let you do it.”

Look, it’s not so much that men are predictable, rather we’re tragically transparent. You want to know where the wind is blowing, you look at the weathercock, right? Well, you try living with this thing as one of your external organs – it’ll always be blowing towards that plush-clad ass, marked “Juicy.” Add to that ass a somewhat palatable personality, and you can power up a wind farm with the result.

Simplifies everyday life though. So I didn’t have to ask him if he was interested, I felt it. But, again, it wasn’t the time or the place, so that didn’t lead anywhere either: he nuzzled me here, nuzzled me there and we called it a night.

The seed was sown, however, and I could leave it to germinate in mysterious silence. I wasn’t worried – I would’ve been in, say, April, but it was October and I wasn’t worried – I knew him enough to predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy that his thing would end up being something equal parts bizarre and benign, like our collective swooning over British royalty while annually celebrating independence from them.

Next morning we had breakfast with Liza and Richard, a strange thing in of itself, but made even more so by Richard… I mean, he’s a nice guy and all, but he can’t read Armand for shit, otherwise he wouldn’t have suggested selling our story for a reality show. My man was about to dig into his cinnamon bun and just froze there, at the prospect of turning into a Papa Kardashian for profit.

The thing with Richard, as far as I understand, is that he’s a child of divorce, so everything that has to do with family melts his well-meaning heart: aren’t we all getting along? isn’t it wonderful? And Armand isn’t a broody fuck but there’s only so much optimism he can take a time. Plus, call me Caitlyn, but you can be as gay as a rainbow Oreo, you still wouldn’t know how to feel about people sleeping with your wife, ex or no. So these two operate on two completely different frequencies, and it’s amicable but hardly cordial.

Caro was going to be discharged in two days, we were told in the hospital. She was staying in El Paso with a friend and wanted to return to Austin immediately, but the doctor forbade air travel.

“It's fine,” Liza said cheerfully, “your father will drive you then.”

Armand inhaled sharply. He and Caro glanced at each other and neither seemed overjoyed by the prospect.

“It’s five hours,” he mumbled.

“It’s nine, actually.”

Venomous look. “Thank you, Richard. Beth…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I marked my mission as accomplished here. I’d talked to Caro, reminded Armand of his priorities in life, I’d even bought a beige stetson for myself, couldn’t pass up the opportunity, and I had no desire to stay marinating in El Paso for another two days.

“What are you doing?” Armand asked, watching me pack my t-shirts and a toothbrush.

“Going home. There’s a direct flight at 3.”

“Timothée...”

I looked up. He had this peculiar expression on his face, like he wanted me to stay or something, the way Rudy looked when I dragged him from under the table to introduce to Isabel. “Oh, no, no, no,” I shook my head. “Don’t even think about it. I won’t be stuck in the car with you two for ten hours. No way.”

“Nine.”

“No!”

“I just…”

I sighed. “Armand, you want my advice? Tell the truth and nothing but the truth and… And help you God, both of you.”

“That’s just like you!” he exclaimed. “I don’t want you to come – you do; I don’t want you to leave – you… Just like you!”

“You’ll be alright,” I patted his shoulder. “She got hit in the head, so she’s quite mellow at the moment. It’s your chance. Don’t fall asleep in the sun, stay away from Richard – you’ll be fine.”

So I donned my stetson and flew back to New York, where – miracle of miracles – my dog was damn happy to see me, which just shows you: save his life – and nothing, leave him with a teenager for a day and it’s _oh, Timmy dearest_ all of a sudden. Isabel again tried to squeeze me for additional hundred bucks, or at least fifty, but during my flight I had had the misfortune to sit next to another QAnon believer who, even though I told him I worked in McDonald’s and knew nothing about politics and didn’t want to, chewed my ears off, explaining that very soon all of Trump’s enemies, one by one – George Soros and Dear Jeff among them - would conveniently commit suicide, scared of being unmasked as Satanists; so, after all this, faced with Lupe’s fragrant daughter’s rapacity, I was, like, hell no, from my cold, dead hands…

Four days later, Armand returned, and this one, after ten hours in a car with his child, looked somewhat worse for wear too. I have no idea what had transpired there – they talked presumably, they had no choice, but he wasn’t forthcoming about the details.

Again, I don’t know what he said but, I guess, it convinced her that, unfortunately, I was a permanent fixture in their lives now. She mulled it over for some time, unfriended me everywhere, befriended me again and then in March flew to New York to have another serious conversation with daddy, this time about his last will and testament.

I was present. I didn’t intervene. Caro, trying to be polite and pragmatic and forgetting that you can rarely be both, inadvertently ended up enlightening her father that what he was calling “love” could very well be an early onset of dementia, and no one – emphatic eyebrow raise – no one would want to go through a will contest, just because my name appeared there unexpectedly. It was all very civil, you know: Armand listened, looking like he wanted to crawl under the table and stay there indefinitely, and Caro talked. I sent a text to my mom, thanking her again for every time she was ready to give up on me and didn’t; thought some, and added one for my dad too.

I could’ve said something, of course, but why bother? Every time I mentioned adopting her, they all stared at me as if I was crazy. But fuck me, it would’ve worked like a charm: she thought she had a bad father now? She had no idea…

I mean, my dad is a pretty laid-back guy, but in no scenario imaginable could I go: “Hey, Pa, we both know you’ll croak soon, so why don’t you deed your truck to me, while you can still hold a pen?”

Probably it’s my small-town mentality talking, but there we have the decency to postpone this until the wake where it’s usually: “Wait a minute! What do you mean he left the house to you? I paid for the casket, I bought all this wine…” The casket was hardly a Cadillac and the wine is shit, of course, every box of it, bought on Walmart’s employee discount from a girl you used to shag in high school, but it’s the principle that matters – you show respect to the elderly, you wait, then they show some respect in return, by willing their property to you. After all, there are traditions, family values.

Well, not here. Here capitalism rules and Caro would be happy to fight it, but from an Upper West Side apartment preferably. I was truly sorry Richard wasn’t present to share this touching family moment.

“Yes, and I want a prenup,” I added my two cents. “I want joint custody for Rudy.”

After that, it was another two merry hours of spirited discussions: Caro had no idea we were going to get married, Armand tried to explain that he had no idea either, I was munching on chia seeds, I’d acquired a taste for them.

Look, kids, you have to be realistic about these things. I was pretty sure I’d be with Armand until the bitter end in the nursing home, but. Ok, let’s not go there. But. If. Anyway, I had no intention to let Rudy wind up as a part of Hammer estate, through some murky New York property statute. Because Caro wasn’t a lawyer, but she could afford one, and I, having missed my chance to ruin Mark Halperin’s career, could still barely afford a John Grisham in hardback.

Armand went and poured himself a generous serving of vodka, then promised us both that we’d go see a solicitor.

“When?” we both asked.

“Next week.”

“Tomorrow.” Unanimously.

“Ok, tomorrow.”

And we went. First, he and Caro visited his lawyer where she could inspect his will; then, same building, one floor down, he and I sat with another dude who prepared a pet custody agreement (in case we separated) and a pet trust (if we both perished before Rudy somehow) for us.

“Take the prenup,” Armand signed, “but don’t expect a nup from me.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“That’s no way to treat a lady.”

“_You _are no lady.”

So I can’t have a nup. Patriarchy and all its ugly prejudices – don’t go down on your man before he says “I do,” if you’re after this thing, my advice. I should’ve ambushed him while we were in Michigan, I thought - my dad’s hunting rifle within reach, we could’ve fixed a shotgun wedding in a tight family circle; but hindsight is 20/20.

Doesn’t matter. The important thing is that when Armand got back from Texas in October, he was damn happy to see me again, too. Just like Rudy. You leave an old guy to the tender mercies of a young progressive female for a day, it’ll put the fear of God into him for a long time.

He looked absolutely drained by Texas sun and Caro, so I led him to the shower, undressed us both, set the water to rainfall and started washing him with a sponge, carefully, like you do with antiques. He took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders and threw his head back, Adam’s apple poking out like a stone in a soapy river.

“Get on your knees.”

One eye opened wearily. “I’m tired.”

“I just want to wash your hair.”

“You can’t?..”

“You’re too tall, my arms get tired.”

“Exercise.”

“Get on your knees.”

He got on his knees, I got hard. Amazing, how it happens, right?

“Well, that’s a nice welcome home.”

“Ignore it.” I poured some shampoo into my palm and started massaging his head gently.

“You need to trim.”

I looked down. “I did, couple weeks ago.”

“I can do it.”

“Oh, no. This tired, you’ll cut more than necessary.”

He sighed and leaned into my thigh, closing his eyes. I felt his breath on my balls, and, ok, I knew he’d had a long trip, but you breathe on my balls, what do you expect?

“Well,” I cleared my throat, “if you really want to...”

He just groaned.

“Look, I am not asking you to unload a wagon of wet cement here. Plus, we have time, there’s still conditioner.”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, “this week will never end…”

“I’ll do you too, later,” I promised. “Come on, didn’t you miss me?”

He didn’t reply, but he blew me, which means, I believe, that he did. Only, after I washed him and he got me off, I felt sleepy and he suddenly perked up, so I got fucked, even though I could do without by that point.

Yes, Armand’s dick started working again – balanced diet or jealousy over seeing me with his daughter, I don’t know - and we screwed into November, when it was time to go face my folks and the anxiety temporarily put _me_ out of commission… Well, it doesn’t matter, I got back to normal after a couple false starts, and, thankfully, Armand didn’t give me any uplifting speeches either, or I wouldn’t have: first rule of fuck club – you do not talk about a fuckup.

Second – everything is better with a stetson on.

Third… Ah, just check that the guy is real, and you’ll be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!


	18. Chapter 18

“Alright,” I nodded, scratching my chin, “alright. Just no slapping me around and calling me your darling dirty slut, ok?”

He assured me that wasn’t on the menu. What was, though, was the twisted black silk rope that didn’t look like it came from Home Depot. My immediate thought upon seeing it was, of course, now I’ll be screwed into a puppy dog position and then screwed on top of that.

“What…”

“Hands.”

“Sure, right, hands,” I took a breath and offered my hands to him, palms down, wrists together.

He hesitated. “No. Behind your back.”

I hesitated too. “Is it some hostage role-play?”

“No.”

It was Thursday, I think. As good a day as any to add some bondage to your romance. We were both in our underwear, mine black, his gray. Maybe that’s what inspired him – he likes me in black. Understandable. I like me in black too.

I put my hands behind my back. He picked up the rope and unraveled it deftly, seemingly very familiar with the topic. It felt nice against my skin, smooth. I kept shifting my arms nervously, until he tugged sharply and my elbows almost bumped into each other. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him fixing the final knot. The result looked like two forearm plates stitched together, and I didn’t have to ask – it was obvious I wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of it, no matter how hard I tried.

“I can say no, right?” I chewed my lip.

“Of course.”

“And no violence?”

“No,” he kissed my temple. “No violence.”

He rounded the bed and stood facing me. For a long time. I looked at myself too – cross-legged on a fuchsia coverlet, black briefs and nothing else, add some lipstick and I’d be welcome in any cheap brothel with undiscerning clientele, to be honest.

Armand was fucking mesmerized.

Time passed.

“Um… what exactly are we doing here?” I asked politely, beginning to suspect, after ten long minutes of this, that he didn’t know himself.

He tugged at his ear self-consciously. “Well…”

“You’ve wanted to do it for a long time,” I realized.

“Yes.”

“Just this?”

“Well…”

He doesn’t exactly blush, but you can make him flustered, his lips contract nervously and he can’t hold your gaze. I felt a pang of sadness – he really didn’t know what to do. His age often made me forget that he’d never had a relationship with a man before - he had affairs, and bondage demands trust, which demands time, one of the things that affairs rarely have. Either he had never found anyone who trusted him enough or lost them too soon to even bring it up.

He pushed my shoulder lightly and I fell back on the bed, like a toy he was trying to play with, to see what it could do.

I had to bite back laughter. “Sorry. I shouldn’t smile, right?”

“No, you can smile,” he smiled too. “Is it… very silly?”

“No,” I sighed and relaxed. “No, it’s not silly at all…”

He started pulling down my underwear, then looked up at me, his brow furrowed.

“I’ll tell you if I don’t like it,” I assured. “Just do your thing. It’s ok.”

Well, his thing was to turn me on my side, lift up my knee and stand staring at my gaping asshole for another long stretch of time. Apparently, I looked spectacular because when he finally joined me on the bed he was hard and ready to go.

Hands tied behind your back doesn’t seem like much - after all, your mouth isn’t gagged, your eyes aren’t blindfolded, you have the freedom to move your legs – but in reality, as soon as you’re on your back, if there is no Liam Neeson-ish set of skills in your arsenal, you’re pretty much helpless: his hand lightly presses on your chest and he has you pinned down, he holds you by the throat – and there’s not much you can do. Running like that won’t get you far. Kicking your legs won’t protect you. I mean, it’s a very simple thing, having your wrists tied, but it does make you nervous when you absorb all your limitations.

Very soon I became restless. And the lower his mouth moved over my body, the harder I struggled. He loved it, I could tell, so I didn’t ask him to untie me, even though I was desperate to touch him, and by the time he reached my cock, I started swearing and making all sorts of noises, pounded his back with my heels; but I didn’t ask him to untie me, and so he didn’t.

My back was beginning to hurt after lying on my hands all this time, so it was a relief when he turned me on my stomach and spent another dreamy moment ogling his knot. A kiss into my back dimple followed, I felt his breath in my crack and tensed.

“What are you going to do?” I tried to see.

“You know.”

“Look, I’ve seen Rudy licking his ass and I never once wanted to join.”

“I won’t ask you to return the favor.”

“You’ll ask me to kiss you, though. Sooner or later.”

“Knowing the things you eat on the street every day…” he sighed. “And I kiss you later, never complained.”

“What, falafel? You can’t compare falafel to ass.”

“True – one leads to diabetes, the other doesn’t.” He lay down alongside me and started stroking my back.

I stared into his hairy armpit and sighed. “Look, the rope I can understand, but the ass thing…” To be honest, I didn’t much understand the rope either, but fine.

“You look very beautiful like this,” he smiled.

I glanced at my back. “Want to take pictures?”

“No,” he leaned to kiss my forehead, “but thank you.”

“I just… why would you ever want to do it? It’s just… It’s so gross, you know?”

His hand traveled to my head, and he began scratching my scalp gently. “It intrigues me, your… Do you know that disgust is a reliable predictor of conservative persuasion?”

“If there’s a closeted Republican here, that’s you, my friend,” I rolled my eyes.

“That’s where this desire to return the country or society to its cleaner past comes from,” he continued. “Ethnic cleansings, eugenics, that’s usually spearheaded by people obsessed with the idea of dirt.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait a second…”

“I don’t say the two are the same, but yes, there is a correlation between genocide and squeamishness.”

I don’t know what other people talk about during sex, but that’s what I get.

“You’re something else,” I snorted, “you think I’ll ask you to eat my ass just to prove that I’m not a Nazi?”

“I didn’t say you’re a Nazi, I only said… You’re more conservative than you think. And yes, I’m pretty sure your political views will change by the time you’re my age.”

“Oh, fuck you! Go to town, feast yourself! I’ll never be a Republican, you hear me? Never! Do you know what Trump did today?”

“No, but you can tell me,” he sat up and slid down the bed, “spread your legs.”

“He…” I looked down. “No, stop, go wash your hands and… Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you don’t like falafel, you better clean me up a bit, before…”

“We have an enema kit.”

“I know,” I rolled my eyes.

I shouldn’t have said it, he pounced immediately. “You’ve been using it.”

“Maybe,” I gritted out.

“Let’s do it!”

“No!” I rolled on my back and sat up. “No! What the hell! It’s like give you an inch, you… No! What next? And I wasn’t, not every time… Anyway, no. Just, go wash your hands and, you know, scrub inside with your finger a little, for my peace of mind. Like, in a rotating motion.”

“For your peace of mind?”

“Yes.”

He got up and headed to the bathroom.

“And I’m not a Republican,” I shouted. “I’m not… It’s just gross, that’s all.”

Long story short, yes, he washed his hands, returned from the bathroom and… rotated, which felt more enjoyable than I expected, but still weird.

“Ok, here goes the tongue.”

“No subtitles, please,” I groaned.

The key, I discovered, is not to picture what’s going on down there. Just pretend it’s a sponge, very soft, gentle and warm sponge. His stubble will break the illusion occasionally, so don’t forget to remind him to shave next time, because when he’s done, you’ll probably concede that there’ll be next time. It’s not really that bad, just helluva embarrassing, though again only if you keep thinking about what’s actually happening.

If you’re impressionable, don’t look – there are things that are hard to unsee, and his face buried in your ass is one of them. So relax and hump the bed. Don’t fart, don’t share your experience on social media next morning and don’t be surprised if you come at the end. You’ll be fine.

Oh, and not wanting to kiss him right after, doesn’t make you a Hitler. You’re just reasonably squeamish - I am – so send him to wash his mouth, with soap preferably, and let him fuck you, by then he’s probably dying to anyway.

So I was - fucked, that is - then untied, massaged with hand cream and given an ice cream for being such a good boy. After which we sat in bed and watched _Casino Royale_, because there’s nothing better to do after anal sex than watch Daniel Craig being repeatedly struck in the taint, I suppose.

It was decided, after brief negotiation, that the rope would play some part in our bedroom activities, but not a prominent part. I admitted I wasn’t much into it, but agreed to go along with it on occasion.

“You think it’s silly?” he asked again.

“No,” I kissed his cheek, “it’s your thing, it’s not silly at all.”

Now, the enema he wouldn’t let go – he needed to see it, he declared, and after using every excuse I could think of, I finally promised him a one-time private performance, just to get him off my back. I didn’t see what was so fascinating about it – I knew some people found the procedure erotic, but I did it for hygienic and aesthetic purposes only, and not very often. But fine, if he thought that a rubber hose coming out of my ass was a sight to behold, I could humor him.

Meanwhile, out of the bedroom, I was following the lead that Estelle so graciously supplied me with. Her motivation became clear as soon as I started listening to Jeremy Brooks – turned out our Jeremy was going to run in 2020, and if I could get rid of him early on in the game, it’d eliminate one more headache for her own candidate.

To determine if a politician is planning to run for any elected office is pretty easy – overnight, as if by magic, they lose every trace of personality they ever had. They are given stacks of polls and face a deeply existential problem – who are you? Meaning, who should you be so that a housewife in Idaho and a tech executive in Arizona both voted for you?

You should be young, but not too young. Religious, but not too religious. Smart, but not a smart-ass. Successful, but not obnoxiously so. If you came from money, you should apologize for it, but carefully or the rich won’t vote for you. If you’re trailer trash, honor your roots, but don’t mythologize them – the poor want to admire you, not to wipe your tears. Show that you’re a family type, but overdose on that and people will think you’re pussywhipped which is bad because you, of course, should be perceived as a real man, which applies to women too now.

In short, start deconstructing – wipe the slate clean, then throw random pieces here and there and see what sticks in the polls. Pets and kids usually do, so don’t get rid of them – they are useful during photo ops. Better yet – adopt someone. If it’s a judge or a mayor you aspire to, that may not be necessary, but if we are talking about a president, then yes, adopt. Preferably someone of color. It doesn’t matter what color, just make sure it looks good against your white face.

Of course, that was the conventional wisdom until Trump came along and threw it all in the trash, so Bill de Blasio’s black kid must be really worried these days. Now there are no rules, meaning that there is only one rule – you should stand out. Kids/pets or no kids/pets, you should be interesting, a task almost impossible for a politician. On the other hand, what could kill you in the polls yesterday, can bring you to the top now. If Obama ran today, he would _brag _about smoking that joint.

Jeremy Brooks was kinda boring from the start, so stripping himself of anything noticeable wasn’t a gargantuan effort, I suppose. What he had going for him was race – black (good, people think race is important in our post-racial society) and military experience – two tours in Iraq (good too, we like a soldier with Pentagon connections to promote pacifism). By the time I caught up with him, he was going around giving interviews about Harlem gentrification, with occasional sesquipedalian words thrown in the mix, as if it was still 2008, and trying to decide how much afro on his head would be too scary for white voters.

Estelle sicced me on him specifically because of his race, that I could see. It wasn’t a matter of racism, but simple foresight – two black guys with similar sounding names would be a liability on stage: again, you need to stand out. It was 2017 - Kamala Harris or Deval Patrick weren’t on anyone’s radar then – and if everything went well, Cory Booker could wind up as the only black candidate for Democrats.

To kill or not to kill, that was the question for me. If Jeremy had some dirt in his closet, someone would bring it up sooner or later, and if it was serious enough he wouldn’t get to the 2020 primaries anyway. AsproTech wasn’t about sex, I was pretty sure, AsproTech was about money somehow. The thing about financial scandals, though, is that if no one goes to jail, then it’s like it never even happened for the public. People don’t pay attention to such things – Google, Facebook, Tesla, Verizon are regularly fined for something that has implications for regular folks, but Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest crime, if you ask people, is that he doesn’t blink enough and Elon Musk’s that he can’t rap for shit. Money stories don’t sell papers, alas. Even _Wall Street Journal_.

Now, what Jeremy Brooks had to do with AsproTech I still had no idea. The only vague connection I could find was the interview from his days in New York State Senate, where he talked about facial recognition software being less accurate in identifying people of color and women and warned that its use should be regulated before it got into the hands of police departments all over the country. That was in 2014, long before this stuff became topical. Since then – nothing.

(San Francisco would be the first city to ban this technology altogether. Ironic, isn’t it? The guys who invent these things are usually the first to say, “Oh, just please, don’t use it on us!”)

No pertaining legislation was passed in New York, and Jeremy became a Congressman and moved to DC. Got himself on House Oversight Committee. How interesting, how convenient. If there were to be hearings about this technology, that’d go through Oversight.

Maybe he wasn’t so boring after all, hm?

I checked AsproTech’s board of directors. Didn’t expect to find anything incriminating and didn’t. He could own stock, though. That wasn’t illegal. Funny, again. They are sitting there regulating the companies they have financial stake in. But what can you do? People got to eat.

I knew I had to check his financial disclosure, but I suspected I wouldn’t find anything there either. His wife, though, didn’t have to disclose anything, so she could be it. That led to Securities and Exchange Commission with its database of public companies. I pored through their records and found zilch. Then I finally had the bright idea to go visit our state legislature and ask around, maybe there was someone who’d talk about what was going on there in 2014.

After a generous portion of sophisticated verbal abuse – by phone and face to face – I got it: Jeremy was going to sponsor a bill about banning police use of biometrics in New York and then… he killed it. Got a juicy contribution for his Congress campaign from some toy manufacturer that ceased to exist after fulfilling its purpose, put his apartment on the market and left for DC.

Now I needed someone from AsproTech and that meant someone from Silicon Valley because they had their headquarters there, and that meant… Richard.

Liza wasn’t thrilled, but she’s rarely thrilled hearing my voice over the phone, even though we exchange gossips from time to time – she’s very much interested in what her ex isn’t telling her and I’m always on the lookout for some unexpected move from Caro. So we cooperate, more or less.

She allowed me to talk to Richard, after I promised – fingers crossed - not to involve him in anything dangerous or illegal. Richard agreed to sniff around for me, and we left it at that. I couldn’t dedicate all my time to it anyway, because Stanley wasn’t interested in Jeremy Brooks at all and I had to investigate on my own.

Soon I too forgot about Brooks. He could wait, it wasn’t like he was walking around killing people, so dealing with him wasn’t that urgent. Thanksgiving was.

Thanksgiving was coming, and Armand and I were going to Michigan. My man was apprehensive, naturally – no boyfriend in America wanted to hear, “Hey, let’s go visit my folks,” since _Get Out _had been released earlier that year.

“If my mom offers you tea,” I joked, “run.”

He didn’t find it funny, judging from his look. “Maybe we’ll invite them here.”

“No, we’ll go _there_.”

He tried to hide behind his father then, saying Chris Hammer would be waiting for us in Maine. He wouldn’t, though, that I knew for sure, because I’d talked to Jessica and she was relieved that we weren’t coming.

Jessica had her own family drama going on – her parents wanted her to marry a “good Japanese boy” and she more or less went along with it, until Chris appeared and swept her off her feet. The distinguished Kodamas were beside themselves initially but decided to wait and see – after all, “Wait by the river long enough, and you’ll see the corpse of your enemy float by.” So they brewed some tea, got comfortable on their ocean-view terrace and waited, thinking that, given the Romeo’s age, they wouldn’t have to wait long.

Papa Hammer, though, wasn’t obliging. He didn’t die and Jessica didn’t leave him, and after a time it became too uncomfortable for everyone to meet at the supermarket aisle and pretend you didn’t know each other. So that year Jessica finally convinced her parents to come and celebrate Thanksgiving together, and they, probably remembering that Chris had an ocean view too and that water doesn’t give a damn – your enemy’s corpse or yours - agreed. And the last thing Jessica needed was for Armand and me to come too and ruffle everyone’s feathers all over again.

How did she know about us? Instagram, of course. She followed Armand, which meant me, and I didn’t know what to do at first, so I asked if I could tell her, and he said fine. As a result, Jessica knew, and she assured Armand that we wouldn’t be missed in Maine that year.

I thanked her and wished her a peaceful dinner. “Just pray he doesn’t bring up Hiroshima,” I chuckled.

“Go to Michigan, Tim,” she replied and hung up.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t funny, but in my defense, I was very nervous myself at the time: I lost appetite, I had trouble concentrating, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t fuck – the whole bouquet.

“Hey, Pa,” I’d practice in front of the mirror, “you know what? I’m gay.”

“Dad, I… I have a boyfriend…”

“Look, the thing is… like, I sorta fallen for a guy. For a man. A dude. I’m in love with a… dude. A man…”

“Pa, I need to tell you something… I’m…”

Either the lighting was bad in our bathroom or I was pale as a ghost. Though I couldn’t blame it on the light that my palms were sweating and my eyes grew round as saucers and my tongue stumbled over every second word.

“Dad, I’m… I’m…” I’d swallow. “Please, don’t hate me, Dad. Please, please don’t hate me…”

There were dreams, too. Vivid, exhausting, seemingly without end. I’d see my house from a distance, hear someone calling my name, and I would start running across a snow field, falling through up to my knees, desperate and scared, but I wouldn’t get closer, and the moment it seemed like I did, the field would turn into a frozen river, and the snow into thin ice, and I’d fall under and would be carried away, trying to scream but swallowing water…

“Work?” Armand kissed my sweaty forehead.

I blinked, my heart beating so fast it hurt. “No… Just… It’s alright.”

He stroked my hair soothingly. “We don’t have to go.”

I closed my eyes, snuggled closer to him. There are times when his size is really a blessing, like you feel protected or something. He hugs you like this and you think, nothing bad can happen to you while he’s here, huge and warm and gentle.

“We do. We have to.”

He sighed into my ear and it made me smile. “What was the dream about?”

“You’ll fall asleep.”

“Yes, but you can talk.”

I started and wasn’t done describing the field, vividly, when I knew he was out. “Library of Congress is on fire!” I rolled my eyes.

“Hu… hu… huuu…”

Which is what “love you too” sounds like at 3 a.m. Not exactly a thoughtful conversation, but it usually helped. The fact that he loved me helped a lot.

My parents didn’t know that Armand was going to join us for Thanksgiving, and he didn’t think it was a good idea to keep them in the dark until the last moment, but I believed otherwise – no need to worry people unnecessarily. I remembered reading this piece about trigger warnings and the fact that they often produced more anxiety in readers than the actual contents of the book and thought, nah, why create suspense, when jump scares work so well? I’ll fly on Wednesday, talk to them, leave them no way out and then Armand will come on Thursday. This way they’ll have only one night to fret, instead of a week or two.

“Give me your black sweater,” I told him, freeing the space in my bag.

“Which one?”

“The one with this braided thing around the collar.”

He got it from the closet and gave to me; and I brought it to my nose, sighing contentedly – it smelled like home. Armand looked benevolently amused.

I rolled my eyes. “Thursday, I want you to be on that plane,” I gave him a pointed look, “if you’re not, I’m going to give this overpriced thing to my dad to chase skunks in.”

He tried to snatch it from me, but I quickly shoved it into the bag without folding. “Be on that plane, and you’ll get it back.”

You need to provide some impetus for your loved ones, I say – a gentle kick in the butt usually works, of course, but I couldn’t kick him from Michigan, so this Tom Ford, or whatever the hell it was, had to do instead.

He sat on the bed, facing me, and looked into my bag forlornly. “This part of your life still mystifies me, frankly.”

“Which part? Rudy, get off!” I said, seeing our dog climbing on the bed from the other side. “He never listens to me,” I shook my head.

“Don’t mock the handicapped,” Armand smiled, turning to scratch him behind the ear.

“Handicapped my ass,” I grumbled. “You he hears perfectly. Which part mystifies you?”

“Oh, the skunks.”

“The skunks? What about them?”

“Do you eat squirrels there?”

I nodded to myself. “You think it’s all _Hunger Games_ west of Broadway.”

“No, but you seem so urbane most of the time, and then…” he shrugged. “I keep forgetting where you came from.”

“Where I came from,” I rolled my eyes. “No, my dad doesn’t like squirrels, though a lot of folks do – they are good for ravioli… What?”

“No, nothing,” he smiled.

“Ok, I know people here think it’s freaky, and the attitude’s rubbed off on me too, a bit, but… It’s never been an issue before. I used to see my mom handling game all the time and there was always something furry in the freezer. I mean, I understand why some are opposed to it, but when you grow up with things like that around the house…

“And it’s not barbaric. Look, it’s not. Of course, abuse exists, but in any sphere of life there is an opportunity for abuse, unfortunately. So you have poachers or just some punks who’d go into the woods, pull out a Kalashnikov and start spraying around - they are the ones who give rise to the idea that it’s all about bloodthirst and cruelty; but it’s not – for example, my dad never took me hunting with him because he knows I’m a bad shot, and a real hunter prides himself on a clean kill: an animal is dead before it knows what happened.

“And it’s not like trophy hunting – you don’t kill just to take a picture with the carcass; it’s about food, and nothing goes to waste. Well, maybe guts but not always, there are ways to cook them too. Antlers and hide you can sell, hoofs can be turned into gelatin, the rest is perfectly edible. If my dad could bring back a stag, that’s, like, I don’t know, 100 pounds of meat plus organs – you can feed a family for months on it. So…” I stopped, seeing him biting back a smile. “What now?”

“I didn’t know you were so passionate about it.”

“I’m not passionate, I’m… Just explaining, that’s all. I’m tired of people making these blanket judgments about things they don’t understand and have no desire to learn. Don’t know about quotas, or population control, or anything. Think it’s all Bambi out there. Well, it’s not. A pack of wolves can run an elk for days and then tear it to pieces while it’s still breathing - I imagine it’d prefer a bullet to the head. I would.”

I was playing with the handle of my travel bag, he caught my wrist and stroked it gently. “I’m sure your father knows how much you love him.”

“Aha.”

“Timothée…”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Just be on that plane on Thursday, ok?”

“Well, I have to get back my sweater somehow,” he smiled, tugging me by the hand, until I settled down on his lap.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he kissed my nose. “Nothing.”

In unison we turned to Rudy. “Out.”

He narrowed his eyes, part offended, part I-couldn’t-care-less-what-you-are-about-to-do. “Go,” I smirked, “you don’t want to be here for the rest.”

“Come on,” Armand added, nodding towards the door.

Well, if Armand said it…

Rudy got up slowly and sauntered to the end of the bed, which bounced back as soon as he stepped on the floor.

“I’m a Fredo Corleone in this family,” I sighed, following him with my eyes.

Armand grabbed my neck, drew me to him roughly and gave me his interpretation of the most famous kiss of death in all cinema. “I know it was you,” he said gruffly, his eyes laughing.

“Impressive,” I snorted. “I’m pissing myself.”

“Take off your pants then…”

“That’s not how it went in the original.”

“Fredo got fucked in the original,” he winked. “Take them off.”

I wasn’t hard and had trouble getting there, so we undressed and caressed each other for a long while under the blanket. It felt like a relief when he rolled on top of me and pressed me deep into the pillows, our legs intertwining, his head fitting perfectly in the crook of my shoulder. In the end, I got him off with my hand to soothe his discomfort and lay listening to his breath in my ear, trying not to think about my dad and failing.

Next day I flew to Michigan.

I landed around four, took a bus and, unable to calm my nerves, got Armand’s sweater out of the bag and brought it to my face – I don’t know if smelling salts worked for people, but this worked for me. Something fell out when I unfolded it, and to my surprise I saw a Twinkie. I knew I didn’t pack it, so Armand must have: the guy knew my twee little heart – I almost sobbed when I bit into it.

“Dad, I’m…” I practiced, staring through the window at the global warming _in flagrante_ – end of November, and not a batch of snow in sight. “I’m in love, Dad. And he’s your age, and he’s wonderful, and he’s… a he. But no one’s perfect, you know?”

Even then, just miles away from home, I still couldn’t imagine actually saying it to him.

“But you used to be a normal boy, Tim…” I imagined him replying.

He’d turn his head slightly to the side and purse his lips, the crease between his brows deepening, like that time I almost burned down my school building while trying to destroy my report card and the fire jumped to the fabric blinds on the window.

“Sheriff’s kid,” Mrs. Cleverton muttered. “For shame.”

Sheriff’s kid, yes.

Shame, yes.

In small communities, these things matter. You can’t just dissolve into the crowd here, immune from your past. You don’t have the luxury of meeting new people every day and discarding your former image like a pair of last-season gloves that doesn’t suit you anymore. Here images stick and memories last.

People are modern and tolerant until the first squabble, when fighting rules go out of the window and every dirty item in your family laundry is brought up: knock down someone’s mailbox accidentally and you’ll hear all about your late aunt, “free-spirited” on a regular day, but a “town whore” on occasions like this.

It wasn’t only my father’s opinion that mattered. He didn’t exist in a vacuum, and sheriff was an elected position: he hadn’t had trouble in winning the office since I was nine, but it all could change – the life your relatives choose can and will be used against you in a small town.

“Landed safely,” I texted to Armand and added a picture of an empty Twinkie wrapper.

“Good,” he replied.

“Send me your dick pic, or I’ll send you mine.”

“I wouldn’t,” he shot back. “Knowing your history, you’ll send it to someone else.”

I replied with a random combination of Yen Banknote and Fire Extinguisher emojis, knowing he’d spend the rest of the day suspecting it meant something and trying to figure out what. A second later, I grabbed my phone and checked again, to make sure I didn’t send it to Richard – the guy could’ve interpreted it as an inside tip that Asian markets were about to collapse again and liquidated his whole portfolio immediately, giving Liza an excuse to amputate my balls with a rusty spoon.

Dad was waiting for me at the bus stop. That was a surprise, and not entirely pleasant, because I hoped for some more time to compose my coming-out speech.

“Timothy,” he greeted me, hands firmly in his pockets.

“Pa.”

He looked me over from head to toe, nodding to himself – two arms, two legs, two eyes, the boy must be fine. “Good?” he checked just in case.

“Good,” I shrugged. “Where’s Mom?”

“Working. Their computer crashed or something, she couldn’t get away.”

“It’s not far,” I chewed my lip. “I could walk.”

“You still can,” he grunted and headed to his car.

That, by our standards, was a thoughtful substantial conversation. I shook my head and hastened after him. About ten years earlier the county offered them a choice – building renovation or new patrol cars. My dad and the guys unanimously chose cars – you can fight crime with medieval Windows and no air conditioning, but try chasing it in corrugated Chevys that don’t start and don’t stop without a prayer. So it was a Ford Interceptor waiting for me, with SHERIFF written across the doors.

Fortunately, crime my dad had to deal with didn’t demand such a ferocious looking vehicle, but while Otter’s wasn’t Detroit, Benton Harbor or Flint, opioid crisis reached these parts too, and what in big cities became a wave of shoot-outs, homicides and armed robberies, manifested here as a drastic increase in burglaries and assaults.

“How are… things?” I glanced at him, when we started driving.

“Andy Dukas electrocuted himself to death,” he frowned. “The house burned down.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yes, nice house.”

“Insurance?”

“None.”

“That’s a shame,” I said again.

It was a short drive but too long to stay silent and not be awkward. “Your mom made a pie for you, this morning,” he cleared his throat. “You eat well?”

“Oh… yes, I try. What pie?”

“It’s all in the diet, they say,” he sighed. “Blood pressure, all. Even cancer. I read recently, a guy had a heart attack at thirty. Thirty…” he shook his head in disbelief. “You’re skinny as a girl. Mom worries.”

I glanced at his growing beer belly. “She worries about you too.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because you’ve probably polished off that pie she made for me,” I smirked. “What was it?”

“Pecan,” he conceded. “And I left you some.”

We talked a bit about the neighbors – same old, same old; the weather – no snow, what gives?; my job – I was still employed? good; the window frames in the living room – rotting since previous winter, need to be fixed. When we turned on our street, I closed my eyes and recited the order and color of the curtains in the windows: Carsons – green, Fordhams – brown, Maloneys – blue, Burrells – green. Turned out, Fordhams installed blinds, that was new; the rest I remembered correctly. By the time I was ready to discuss my love life with him, we were pulling to a stop in front of our house and I again didn’t know how.

He opened the door for me, asked if I needed anything and when I said no, told me he’d be in the shed. Left alone with my anguish and the remains of pecan pie in the kitchen, I grabbed a slice, went and sat in the living room, staring at the dark TV screen.

I’d better wait for my mom to get back from work, I thought, this way I could tell them both at once, and if worse comes to worst, it’s always good to have your mom by your side. Yeah, I nodded to myself, I’ll wait for mom, she’ll… Well, I had no idea, what she’d do, but if she started crying, my dad would go berserk on my ass, of that I was sure.

Maybe I shouldn’t wait for Mom then…

I stopped chewing and peered into the abyss of the screen, discerning my dark shape there. The whole picture was fucking depressing – November, empty room, old couch, a guy with a pie. I turned to the window and saw our backyard: dirt, rotten leaves, stakes left from the tomatoes my mom grew in the summer, apple tree, another apple tree, bush…

Christ! Next thing, I’ll start counting the fence pikes.

I stopped several times on my way to the shed, mouthing the words I’d prepared and forgetting them all as soon as I actually opened the door and saw my dad inside. Hunched over a table, he was studying some wide plank under a gooseneck lamp.

“Dad…”

He looked up, squinting his eyes at the light coming from outside.

“I wanted to talk to you,” I managed.

He sighed heavily. “You’re fired after all.”

“No,” I chuckled. “Not that.”

He studied my face, decided I was telling the truth and relaxed. “What is it then?”

I looked at my hands, locked into a nervous knot. “What are you doing?”

He glanced at the table. “Shelves collapsed last week. Your mother’s been bringing home tons of books recently.”

Armand, I remembered, smiling. Armand and his ARCs. “She’s always loved to read.”

“Can’t finish half of them,” he shook his head. “Don’t know why she’s bothering. I tried a couple – knocked me out too.”

“They are probably bestsellers,” I grinned.

“Don’t know about that – if you read, you’d think half the country was molested by an uncle and the other hated black folks,” he frowned. “Glum stuff.”

“Dad?”

“Um-hm.”

“I…” Fuck. “Have you patched it up with Bob?”

“Bob?”

I rolled my eyes – as if he didn’t know whom I was talking about. “Terpins.”

“No,” he bristled. “Pretty sure he stole the sign from our lawn. Can’t prove it, but I know it was him.”

“Lawn” was a very generous term for what we had in front of our house, but technically correct – there was some grass there and as a kid I used to wish that it’d just give up and die because I hated to maw it. We put up signs there during the elections, and I didn’t have to ask whose name was on it in 2016.

“You still like him?”

“He is a thief,” my dad muttered.

“I meant Trump.”

“Oh. He’s doing what he can. Could be worse, I guess.”

Debatable, but ok. “And Pence?”

“Who cares about Pence?” he snorted. “The guy shoots someone in broad daylight - you put him in a lineup, no one would identify him. No face. He wouldn’t be a VP otherwise.”

“He supports gay conversion,” I bit my lip. “What… what do you think about that?”

He frowned, trying to tear the bent bracket off. “Give me the pliers.”

I picked the first ones that I saw in the toolbox and handed them to him.

“No, red handles.”

I found the ones with the red handles.

“No, chipped at the end.”

“Jesus Christ!” I was exasperated. “Forget about this damn shelf for a second!”

He looked up, astonished at my tone.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I mumbled automatically.

Fathers… Shadows that follow you all your life. Armand, past fifty, still couldn’t tell his father the truth - even if you no longer want to be him, you crave his approval, can’t free yourself from this slavish desire.

My father was an affable man, loved a good laugh, knew this place and its people, their stunning potential and what they were capable of. It took some effort to keep the violence he encountered occasionally from permeating our daily life. Some days, taciturn. Leave him alone, my mother would say, and I’d look at the light trickling from the shed and stay away.

Early on I learned to fear his silent displeasure more than any scolding. Disappointed, he’d get very quiet, looking at me attentively, trying to figure out how his son could be such a fool, and I’d squirm under his gaze, I’d promise to do better, and yet, parallel to this yearning to please, there’d always be a need to challenge: I love you, but I want to do better than you; I love you, but I can’t wait to outgrow you…

He taught me to shoot. Couldn’t teach me to love it – from the start his Remington and mine had nothing to do with each other. That was a betrayal, leaving Michigan was another.

He taught me to cry, that one time when I saw him crying after his own father died. He taught me to find North without a compass. He wanted me to become a cop, to marry my high school sweetheart, to get drunk when the pain was too much for words. He wanted me to be a version of him but I couldn’t do it, and so we found ourselves with less and less to say to each other over the years.

Yet, no matter how doggedly I tried to wipe out all the traces of him in me, I knew I’d always carry them, the seeds of what I could have been.

Was I pitying him for choosing the life I found lacking or was it envy, deep down, envy of his self-awareness, of the simplicity and straightforwardness of his path? He knew what he was and it freed him from shame, if nothing else. I knew I envied that.

“Timothy?”

“Dad,” I paused. “I need to tell you something, and you probably won’t believe it at first, but it’s true. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time…”

“Meaning your mother already knows,” he chuckled.

“Um, yes. And she doesn’t mind.”

“But I will?”

“Well,” I chewed my lip, “maybe. Though you shouldn’t.”

“Alright,” he nodded. “What is it?”

I avoided his eyes, looked down and spotted the pliers he was asking about. “Here,” I dug them out and handed to him, but he didn’t take them.

“Timmy, what’s wrong?”

Kill me, I couldn’t say it. “Dad, let’s imagine that I’m telling you I’m… dating a guy. What… would you do?”

I stared at the patterns in the tabletop wood until they started blurring in front of my eyes. He put down the shelf and was brushing off some dust from its surface absentmindedly.

“Are you?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, had to swallow to make my throat work. “Yes.”

Slowly he peeled off his working gloves and pulled closer a small stool that was standing beside the wood burning stove he used during winter here. “Your mother… I found a book, slipped behind the sink in the bathroom… Guess, she’d been reading it.”

“What… book?”

He cleared his throat, and if the light was better I could’ve sworn he was blushing. “Well, about… about what to do if… When a child is… a… Well, how to talk to your child if he…” He stopped. “Should’ve known. She’s been… peculiar lately.”

He rubbed his chin and nodded. I wanted so much for him to say something else, but he didn’t. Didn’t look at me either.

“Dad?”

“I don’t really know about these things, Tim,” he said quietly. “I see that it’s fashionable now… Can’t say I had to deal with it much. I mean, in my time… in a place like this, that would’ve been the end of the road for you.

“There was one family, they had to move eventually – for the boy. I don’t even know if he was… but everyone thought he was, and… They were right to move. Wouldn’t have ended well. It was different then.”

I picked up the pliers and started tearing apart a small sample of fiberglass I found on the table. “Are you angry?”

“Hard to say.”

“Upset?”

He shrugged.

“Surprised?”

“No.”

I looked up. “No?”

“Well,” he fidgeted, “you were always… sensitive.”

“That,” I snorted, “is probably the last thing that book would recommend you to say.”

“Didn’t mean it as… That is… Not in that way.”

What _way, _I wanted to ask but decided against it. “I’m not turning into a girl, Pa.”

“Don’t,” he sighed. “You shoot worse than your mother.”

“I wouldn’t repeat it in front of her,” I smirked. “Dad?”

“Um?”

“Would you like to meet him? I… I’d really want you to.”

“Yes, well, we can think of something…”

“He’s coming tomorrow.”

Our eyes met, and he frowned. “Here?”

“Yes, here. Tomorrow. Is it ok?”

He shrugged. I waited. “Well, he must’ve bought the tickets already… Don’t really… Your mother knows?”

“No,” I admitted. “I didn’t know how you’d react, so…”

“Yes, right… Don’t think we should tell your grandma. She’s… Indigestion and all. Let her live in peace.”

“Yeah, she’d…” He stared, daring me to continue. I cleared my throat, “We’ll let her live in peace. Right. No need to… She probably still hasn’t recovered from the news about Rock Hudson. Dad?”

“Hm?”

“You aren’t surprised _at all_?”

He thought for a moment. “No, not really.”

It hurt. Not the bone-crushing pain of a rejection, just a small cold stone in your gut from something like “You look good _today_,” or “You made it, who could’ve thought?” I was preparing myself for something awful, instead it was bittersweet – I wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but he didn’t expect anything else. I could spend another hour trying to explain why I was sad that at no point did he offer to hug me or asked how I was feeling, but what was the use?

I came here to end with the secrecy and found myself saying goodbye to the last of my childhood, where, after a less than stellar school performance, your parents tell you you’re the best and you believe them, and it gives you the strength to raise your hand again next time, to go on that stage and sing in your imperfect voice, because you know they’ll be in the audience, cheering you, believing in you, keeping the illusion. Only that’s over now, and they are giving it to you straight, “Sorry, Timmy, hate to break it to you, but there won’t be a Grammy on your shelf…”

There was nothing else to say. I knew he was uncomfortable with these types of talk. He gave me as much as he could. At some point, he started to see that I was no longer a boy to whom his every word was an absolute law, and he managed to accept it without resenting me. I guess, I couldn’t ask for more. Maybe no one can.

Families are rarely what we want them to be – a unit of individuals treating each other with respect and empathy – instead it’s a river with a lot of undercurrents but also grains of gold buried here and there. It can make you rich, this river, and it can crush your dreams, shiny nuggets crumbling in your hands, revealing pyrite.

I was sad and I knew he wouldn’t understand why. “Hell, what do you want from me?” he would’ve probably said. “Have you any idea what _my _father would’ve done if I came to him with something like that?”

True.

“I’ll go see, maybe Mom’s home,” I told him. He nodded without looking at me and began attaching a new bracket to the shelf. I paused at the door, glancing around, taking it all in – goodbye, it was sweet while it lasted.

Back at the house, I found my mom in the kitchen and told her that we’d talked.

“And?”

“He’s ok,” I shrugged. “Didn’t have a fit or anything.”

“Well then?” she looked puzzled.

“No, nothing. It’s all good,” I admitted. “Thanks for the pie, by the way.”

“I added some chocolate this time. Did you notice?”

“Yes, Mom, it’s great.”

She seemed relieved that I looked healthy, asked me about my diet, my salary, my dental hygiene, if I had winter boots, if I exercised. Had I seen _Hamilton_? I still hadn’t. She still thought I should.

My high school sweetheart was getting a divorce, she said and looked at me significantly.

“That ship has definitely sailed.”

“She’s a nice girl.”

“I have a boyfriend, Mom.”

“Well,” she huffed, “just letting you know…”

Right, in case pussy nostalgia kicks in and cures me… “Tell her I said hello,” I chuckled.

“She’s in Indiana. I’ve been talking to her mom.”

Now, the mom in question was hot, no way around it - the nipples alone were legendary, custom-made for cold climate. “Say hello to her too,” I sighed wistfully. “Is _she_ divorced?”

“No, they’re fine, put up a new fence recen…” she began, then turned sharply and threw a dish towel at me. “Stop being silly!”

I balled and threw it back, thought for a moment. “You’d have a problem with that?” I glanced at her. “I mean, couples with age difference are pretty common. Take the Trumps, for example. He is, what, thirty years older than her...”

“She’s a woman,” she shrugged. “It’s different when it’s a woman.”

“And if it’s a man?” I frowned.

“No,” she shook her head decisively, her back still to me. “Doesn’t look good the other way around. Like, this french guy, I always forget his name…”

“Macron?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Look at him - he’s a boy. And he’ll always be a boy next to his wife. No.”

Yep, I nodded, long is the way and hard that out of the Dark Ages leads to Enlightenment. My mom was actually a feminist of sorts, but from the old school, and the old school meant old prejudices.

My phone buzzed and I found a message from Armand: “How’s it going?”

“Halfway there,” I wrote. “Don’t worry and don’t unpack your shit yet.”

“I’m not worried,” he replied.

“Then why are you asking?” I rolled my eyes.

He sighed, no doubt. “Just don’t antagonize your parents, please.”

“I never…” I started typing and then remembered how my negotiations with Justin over Rudy went. “K,” I was going to send, then thought better and changed it to “Ok,” knowing that it’d be another _people can’t even spell OK nowadays _otherwise.

Dinner came, and I still hadn’t decided how to break the rest of the story to my parents. I observed them – eating mashed potatoes, relieved that the worst had already happened. There was a brief exchange of looks and nods when Dad came in, which basically meant they were going to discuss the whole situation in private later, but no _ok, let’s hold hands and talk about Timmy being gay and all its implications, who wants to start?_ followed.

Truth be told, I’m probably the loudest of our little bunch, or at least most talkative. Like, I used to find out that my parents were fighting only when my dad failed to show up for dinner and Mom would simply say that he was staying in his office overnight.

Not that the concept of sharing your feelings is totally foreign to us, but you’re certainly encouraged to use moderation while you’re at it, so I didn’t expect help from any quarter in starting the conversation and I didn’t get any – we complimented Mom’s cooking and we ate, while Armand’s shadow kept hanging over my head, mocking my indecisiveness.

“I have news,” I announced.

They exchanged a glance. “More news?” Dad asked.

“Yes,” I nodded. “Well, it actually has to do with the other stuff. Like they say, truth, the whole truth… Well, this part is the _whole_ truth, and… You remember Caroline?”

My mom nodded uncertainly. Dad frowned, “90 days _ fiancée _?”

“Well, 90 days… I’d say it was longer, it certainly felt longer, but, yes, her. It might come as a shock, b…”

“She’s dead,” my nihilistic mom concluded.

“Jesus, no! She’s fine. Thriving, actually. Ok, she was in the hospital recently, but that’s over now. She’s recovered as far as I know - you can check her Insta if you don’t believe me. So, right, Caroline, the truth is – the whole truth – well, Caroline Hammer has a father…”

“That’s news?” my dad raised a brow.

“Can you not interrupt for five seconds?” I groaned. “No, that’s not news, the news is… Don’t eat just now, please,” I said, seeing my dad aiming for another meatball. “So, ok, well, Caroline, she has a father, I met him about a year ago. We were dating at the time - Caro and I, I mean - but I met him and…

“Well, nothing happened at first, you know? Because I have this rule - it works with animals too – ten minutes, so nothing happened for ten minutes. Then I went to the bathroom, and he went to the bathroom… And no, that’s not what you’re thinking,” I said sternly, though judging from their quizzical looks they had no idea what to think at all.

“Alright,” I wiped my sweaty forehead, “I guess, we should… The shorter version of this is – I’m dating him now. The father. Armand Hammer. That’s the whole truth.

“Plus, we’ve been living together for about six months now, and I invited him to come celebrate Thanksgiving with us, here. To introduce you. So he’s coming. Tomorrow. Here.”

You’d have time to draw a quick sketch of us sitting at that table, silent and motionless, because absolutely nothing happened at first.

“What was it you said?” my dad asked quietly. “Let him go, let him live in a big city, with educated people. Let him… What will he do here? Saw logs and drive Hi-Lo?.. Right. Happy now?” he turned to Mom.

“But I… what? I… Are you out of your mind?” she stared at me. “Are you out of your goddamned mind, Timothy?”

“No,” I said calmly. “I’m dating an older man, that’s all. I love him.”

“Love him?” she gasped. “But he is… He must be…”

“He’s only fifty-one.”

“Fifty-_one_?!”

“Well, he was fifty only recently, but he can’t help it, you know? And you… I mean, you’re older. No offense, I’m just…”

“What are you even saying?” she interrupted. “Listen to yourself!”

“He doesn’t even look that old, Mom. Wait, I’ll show you, here,” I got out my phone and was searching for a nice photo, but she shoved my hand away when I reached out to her.

“What about Johnson?” she crossed her arms. “What happened to him?”

“_Armand_ Johnson,” I said but she didn’t get it at first. “It’s the same person, I just didn’t want to tell you over the phone, so…”

“So you lied to me,” she nodded. “And he… I can’t believe it – he sounded so normal…”

“You talked to him,” my dad nodded.

“Well…” she blinked. “I thought he was a roommate. I mean… Of course, I talked to him! But he sounded normal, I swear.”

“Normal…”

“He _is _normal. Guys, please,” I tried again, “there’s nothing really wrong with this situation. It’s a bit unconventional, sure, but it’s not wrong, and when you meet him - he’s a very nice person. This age thing, it doesn’t matter at all, it never really bothered me. And if _I_ don’t give a damn, why should anyone else? Why should you? If you’re fine with the rest, why should _this_ matter?”

My dad squinted his eyes as if from a headache. “Is this… Is this some kind of an arrangement? He pays for your college, things like these, and you…” he swallowed. “Is it?”

“Of course not!”

Evidently, the possibility hadn’t crossed her mind, because my mom got pale suddenly. “But you’re living in his apartment…” she said in a small voice.

“Yes, but he’s not paying for me…”

“Who’s paying for the apartment, Tim?” Dad asked.

I covered my face with my hands. “Look, please… You’re seeing it all in the wrong light. I moved in with him because…

“Ok, right, I admit, there was a time when I couldn’t keep up, financially I couldn’t, and I let it go, I was spending more money than I should’ve been, and… It was really stupid, but I’m better at it now, I keep track and I’m going to pay off my overdraft and everything soon.

“No, wait! Wait, you’re… it’s seriously messed up what you’re suggesting and I want you to understand that you’re wrong. He’s paying the rent for both of us right now, yes, but as soon as I have even a dime to spare, it will change. There’s nothing… Look,” I got up, “all this, everything I’m wearing, I bought it all myself; plane tickets here, everything… I mean, the rumors about the print media’s death have been greatly exaggerated, and I still have a job in a somewhat reputable publication,” I tried to smile.

I don’t know what I expected, but I didn’t expect this. He didn’t even look at me. “And your laptop?”

“Fuck, I’m not selling myself, ok?” I spat. “It’s the same one you bought for me four years ago! How… Who do you think I am? You think if I’m a disappointment to you that I’m automatically garbage?”

“Tim!” Mom gasped.

My dad sat with a stony face, staring at nothing. Slowly he patted his pockets and pulled out a pack of Marlboros, with a lighter stashed inside.

“Don’t smoke here,” my mom closed her eyes.

I looked around, for the first time feeling like a guest in this house. “I’ll catch the first bus tomorrow morning and I’m out of here,” I said. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

When I left the kitchen, no one tried to stop me. Lying on the bed in my room, arms crossed behind my head, I was staring at the ceiling and wondering why I couldn’t cry. But I was more angry now than sad. Something between my father and me was broken, and it had been broken long ago. With every beer can that I missed while he was teaching me how to shoot, with every key that I pressed on my typewriter while he thought I should be dreaming about law enforcement, with every class I took in college that he considered a waste of time, I was losing him and he was losing me. In the end, I loved him but I could live with the fact that he didn’t know how to love me.

Admitting that brought a sense of quiet relief, the kind you feel hearing the last penny of your debt, finally paid off, ringing on the table. That shame I’d been carrying with me for so long was slowly leaving my body. I remembered Armand talking about his father: it took him a long time too to finally free himself from adoration and hate, two sides of the same coin stamped with your father’s image.

“I would fight my dad,” Tyler says in _Fight Club, _summing up the long gruesome history of every boy’s angst, from Zeus to Bush II. You swallow the muzzle, pull the trigger, watch your bloody teeth flying like confetti – who were you aiming at? The shadow of your father whom you were trying to find in every figure that’d betrayed you since, starting with God.

You owe your life to him but nothing else. Wipe your sweaty fingers, load the magazine and put the end to your misery – no awards for shooting ghosts, but ain’t it sweet, that smell? I’m sure burning Baghdad did smell like victory for a second. If only for a second.

I watched my mom come in and sit on the edge of the bed, bringing the whiff of tobacco with her.

“You should apologize,” she said after a moment, looking at the laptop on my desk.

“Why?”

“He’s your father.”

“I’m his son, so what?”

“You expect too much, Tim. You think it’s easy for everyone but you. It’s not.”

“I’m tired of apologizing.”

“And we’re tired of your shenanigans,” she shrugged. “So what?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“For how long?” she looked at me. “A year? Ten years? You’ll have to return one day, even if only to bury us. But I must warn you, apologizing then won’t mean a goddamn thing to anyone.”

“You heard what he said.”

“You did worse.”

“Worse?”

“Ill-informed, willfully ignorant yokels?” she glanced at me.

“I’ve never said anything like that!” I sat up.

She turned away. “You wrote it.”

I felt a rush of blood to my face. “It wasn’t about you…”

“About our neighbors then? They are our friends, you know?”

“Look, that’s just… It’s part of the game, it’s business. That’s not what I’m thinking. If I…” I was trying to remember my articles, but there’d been so many by that time. Could I say something like that? I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be sure. That was the hell of it, I couldn’t be sure. “Mom…”

“It doesn’t matter now, Tim. I’ve said what I came to say. If you want to leave, fine; though I’d like you to stay. You’re our only child, but we’re your only parents, and who knows who’s a bigger disappointment to whom? Stay.”

I looked at my lap. “I can’t leave Armand alone, he’s my family too now.”

“I thought he was coming?” she glanced at me.

“Should he? After what happened…”

“Apologize.”

“What about _him_?”

“Don’t be so bloody difficult!” she replied angrily and got up. “Not everything’s about you, you know? What did you think would happen, coming here, announcing this to us like it’s nothing?”

“Thought you’d be happy for me,” I looked at her. “Too much to ask?”

“Well,” she brushed back her hair absentmindedly, “we’re trying. Try you too – apologize.”

I didn’t. She left and I spent another hour staring at the ceiling and huffing noisily, hoping someone would hear and come to ask me how I was feeling. Should’ve known better. The house was silent like a tomb – no TV, no sound of running water from the kitchen. The only sign that the planet was still inhabited was the voices of our neighbors arguing in their backyard, so I listened to them, trying to distract myself with someone else’s misery – theirs seemed pretty prosaic in comparison: they had bedbugs and couldn’t get rid of them, so out of desperation turned against each other.

“Fucking loser! I married a fucking loser!” I heard.

Something banged - probably the door behind him; something thudded – maybe her shoe, thrown at his back.

“So far it’s a shitshow,” I texted Armand. “But you’re still coming.”

“You’re in one piece?”

“More or less. A dick pic would glue them back together tho.”

To my astonishment, ten seconds later a received a photo of his crotch, modestly clad in black briefs but still mouthwatering. How he deduced that the situation was this dire I have no idea, but he sometimes does, even across the distance.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered, got up and went in search of my father.

I found him in the living room. No lights, he was sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, in front of the unlit TV, staring at the floor. I sat beside him, and he turned his head slightly, but didn’t say anything.

As tempting as it seemed at the moment, I couldn’t destroy civilization just to assuage my daddy issues - we had to communicate somehow, me and my old man. Online it’s so easy, you can unfriend, mute, block someone. Click, click, click – and they’re out of your life forever. That’s why we spend hours in chatrooms every week but can’t get through a family dinner once a year.

“We have a dog,” I started. “A big one. Got him from a rescue. He was sick, but… he’s getting better.”

I showed him a picture of Rudy lying on the carpet in front of the couch because he had trouble fitting on the couch itself. The light from the screen colored my father’s face in blue. Looking closely, I noticed gray in his eyebrows which I’d missed before. For some reason, it squeezed my throat.

“Rudolph,” I sniffed. “Very probably after Giuliani. Remember him?”

“Good mayor.”

I snorted. “Well, Armand agrees, I guess. Though he’s gone off the deep end recently.”

He hesitated. “Your friend?”

“No, Giuliani.”

“He’s loyal.”

“Yeah…”

Useless and destructive, Trump’s newly appointed cybersecurity advisor had trouble unlocking his own phone and became famous for butt-dialing half the reporters in town spilling some embarrassing tea, but loyal he was. Like that friend that always insists on helping you and complicates everything even more. Donald knew how to pick them, it seemed. I fervently hoped Rudy wouldn’t be inspired by his namesake - we had enough on our plate.

“I’m working on something,” I said. “Too early to tell, but if I find any _there_ there, it could be a game changer for me, professionally. I’d start earning then. Again, nothing astronomical but… everything you fear right now, you wouldn’t have to fear it anymore.”

He pursed his lips. “I don’t understand it, Tim, your paper is big. We thought, when you found this job… Doesn’t make sense to me.”

“You’re a sheriff,” I glanced at him, “why can’t we afford a new roof?”

“Roof,” he huffed. “Roof. Your mother wants to tear it off completely and put a new one, when we could change the insulation, and it’d be the same thing.”

“Well, being a no-name journalist is enough for insulation too,” I explained. “But flashy title doesn’t help when your rent jumps every time an organic bakery is opened down the street or some here today, gone tomorrow start-up leases a loft a block away.

“I’ve read an essay recently. Chick from Queens. She writes, I have three packs of spaghetti, eviction notice and chronic migraine that my insurance won’t cover, so I’m going back to teaching, because…

“Fuck, it may be the best essay I’ve read in years! But… you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an aspiring journalist there. New York is… I mean, it’s huge, it’s everything… and when it’s going good, it’s going great, but when it’s bad, it’s awful, see? And don’t say I’d do better as a plumber – I know it, but don’t say it – I have enough shit to deal with as it is.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, I’m paying for myself now, and as soon as I can, I’ll be contributing to everything else. So it’s not… If it embarrasses you that I’m gay, that’s one thing, but you don’t need to think that I’m a hooker too, ok? If I was hustling, you’d have a new roof by now.”

We stared at each other in the dark. He blinked first, if it counts. “But the girl’s _father? _Tim…”

Right, that.

“We fell in love,” I shrugged. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but it works just like it does with a girl. Same thing. You spot a nice ass, and the rest falls into place, basically. You lose your head, can’t help it, it…” I noticed his bemused stare and stopped. “Well, ok, it’s… I mean, it’s not only… There’s spiritual connection there too, like… It’s love, you know, there’s everything.”

“But her _father?_”

“Oh, come on, Pa! This stuff happens. Like, didn’t that guy… Who is he? Our cousin or something. Didn’t he marry his sister-in-law at one time?”

“That’s on your mother’s side.”

“So what?” 

He glared at me in the dark. “Your grandma will have a seizure when she finds out…”

“We’ve already decided not to tell her.”

I heard steps and a moment later my mom came up and sat on the armrest beside me. We all sighed in unison and stared at the dark TV screen.

“The father’s into spinach too?” she asked after a while.

“Not really” I frowned. “He’ll eat anything - he’s very polite.”

“I’ll make corn salad then.”

Dad groaned. “Can we skip the rabbit food for once?”

“Guests expect a salad,” she enlightened him.

“The dog coming too?” he turned to me. “What’s _his_ expectations?”

“No,” I smiled. “We found a sitter for him.”

So I told them about Isa and her going rate and we spent another ten minutes wondering how a pet sitter in Manhattan could make more than a teacher in Oklahoma. The country was going down the tubes, my dad concluded and Mom had to agree. When he switched on the TV, Fox News eagerly backed it up.

Next day I borrowed Mom’s car and went to pick up Armand at the bus stop. He looked good - you take a male of the species and add some Balenciaga, the results are usually satisfactory – and you can forgive a lot to a pretty man, so at first I was going to spare him the _it’s Baltimore, gentlemen, the gods will not save you _lecture. Then I saw the orchids.

I stared at them with absolute amazement – I’d spent twenty years in these parts, and you could put a gun to my head, I wouldn’t be able to tell you where to buy this stuff here.

Now, there’s only one question to be asked, if you see orchids in my town.

“Why?”

“You said… there were problems.”

“I said it was a shitshow,” I corrected.

“We can get something else, if your mother doesn’t like them,” he suggested, and I noticed a worried note in his tone.

I scratched my head staring at the bouquet - dizzyingly blue flowers inside a transparent square box, they looked like something from another planet, to be honest. I suspected my mom had never held anything like this in her hands. It didn’t escape me either that they matched the printed pattern on his silky scarf – because it’s Armand and with all his practicality, he’d think of shit like that before leaving the house.

“Fine,” I conceded. “Just don’t forget to compliment her corn salad. I don’t know if it’s any good, but she’s made it specifically for you, so lie if you must.”

I don’t know what impressed my mom more, Armand or the orchids. She wasn’t prepared for either. Though, truth be told, no photo can prepare you for Armand in the flesh – I mean, you wouldn’t fall for your girlfriend’s father if he looked like your standard subway weirdo – and when he’s dressed to kill, which he was in this case, he can do some damage to vulnerable psyche. I myself had trouble concentrating on the road while driving this beauty to my humble abode.

She recovered swiftly though. The woman who used to deliver parcels through snowstorms and weathered quarter of a century by my dad’s side wasn’t going to be defeated by a pair of pretty eyes, even if they too went well with the orchids. She accepted the flowers and, after giving him another suspicious once-over, suggested he called her Eleanor, but she didn’t turn into a puddle of goo the way her child had done in similar circumstances.

Then the usual followed.

“Where are you going to sleep?” she asked, addressing us both but staring at Armand, to let him know, I think, that sophisticated bullshit was still bullshit from the chemical point of view and no amount of orchids would convince her otherwise.

I looked at him, he looked at me, then his eyes drifted away and his face acquired a very dignified expression meant to show you that he was seriously contemplating the question but undermined by the fact that he was actually staring at the crocheted owl hanging on the wall.

No Jason Bourne, my man, no Jason Bourne.

“The cou…” I began, then thought better of it. “We’ll sleep in my room.”

She glanced at Armand appraisingly. “Your bed is too narrow.”

“And the couch is too short,” I parried. “We’ll sleep the way we always do. Together.”

“What about slippers?” she didn’t give up.

I glanced at Armand’s feet – nothing we had here, except snowshoes, would fit him. “You’ll be fine in your socks, right?”

He nodded, shrugged, nodded again, obviously never having imagined that just entering the house would take so much ceremony.

“He’ll be fine in his socks,” I told her. “Anything else?”

“If the toilet doesn’t stop flushing,” she glared at Armand, “jiggle.”

I glanced at the owl, it was visibly dusty.

“What exactly happened here yesterday?” he asked quietly, when she left us alone, returning to the kitchen.

“I guess, she’s Team Caro,” I shrugged. “Alright, let’s put your stuff in my room, and I’ll show you the town while it’s still light outside.”

He looked and felt out of place in my room. I watched him stepping gingerly as if he was in a museum or something, pausing in front of every framed Best Essay certificate I had on the wall. He was amused that instead of Hemingway I had a portrait of Elmore Leonard pinned over my desk and seemed uncomfortable noticing a shelf with Spider-Man action figures arranged in neat rows. There were my photos too, of course - more of them on display than when I lived here, because Mom kept adding stuff from the albums after I moved out - I on a snowmobile, I in my school yard with a basketball on the tip of my finger, I on a bike, I with a hunting rifle, I with Mom, I with my hand around my then-girlfriend…

My girlfriend?

I did a double take. This one hadn’t been there that morning, I was pretty sure. At least it wasn’t Caro but the girl currently divorcing someone in Indiana, and Armand didn’t ask anything; still I decided to have another quiet word with Mom because this double-dealing had to stop.

“Something is burning,” he observed.

“Neighbors have bedbugs,” I replied distractedly.

“Um, do we?”

“What?”

“Do we… have bedbugs?”

“I promise you,” I snorted, “if something bites you in the ass tonight, 9 out of 10 that it’s me.”

Our subsequent sightseeing tour was short but nonetheless emotional, at least for me: my school, where I first kissed and wrote, that I couldn’t wait to leave and kept reminiscing about ever since; our famous cinema, where I first saw_ Alien_ with my dad during a retrospective and discovered that tough chicks can be hot; Mom’s Post Office, where, surrounded by smells of glue and paper, we used to share a cup of scalding tea with her on a frosty day, after delivering the parcels together because the mailman was sick, and where, looking at her red frost-bitten hands, I realized she was tough too; three doughnut shops, whose closing was probably the only thing that could drive my dad to depression; the library, one and only, advertising another poetry evening where self-taught artists without fancy degrees would read their works to an audience of five, knowing that’s the only applause they’d ever hear yet finding the strength to write again; the diner where I used to wash dishes and haul trash, Robert Redford on my mind, Em bitching about Kim in my ear.

“The place where we know how to forgive each other,” Armand quoted back what I told him once.

Yes, I looked around, yes, indeed. The Bensons who were throwing stuff at each other only the day before, now were burning their mattress together, and my mother who, I knew, was less than thrilled about me dating an old guy was now making a corn salad for him in our kitchen.

If there’s no exit in sight, forgiveness is the only thing left to you. On the side of the building, peeling Trump poster was revealing Obama’s smiling face underneath. The cinema commemorating Clinton’s victory regularly hosted Republican events now. They came and went, making promises to win and breaking them to get reelected, and the people continued with their lives, in reality more interested in what their neighbors were arguing about than what transpired behind closed doors between Trump and Putin in Helsinki.

We ran into people I knew, of course – I knew everyone and everyone knew me, so walking around unnoticed wasn’t an option - and chatted about this and that: weather, wages, the Union, damn tourists, whom we dislike mightily because they never come here, and fucking Illinoisans, equally despicable, because they have the gall to. It seemed half of my classmates were roaming the streets, so we met four of them – three married, one divorced – and discussed the other half – one overdose, two DUIs. Everyone wanted a selfie – except Armand – and everyone got one; with Armand, of course.

“I’ve never heard you say ‘ope’ before,” he told me on our way home, smiling.

I chuckled. “What’s left of ‘hope’ after the Union went bust.”

“Union is…”

“Yeah, no, cars, and the state of _our _Union is regrettable.”

“And you?”

“What about yuh?” I winked.

I introduced him as “boyfriend” to anyone who asked, and almost everyone did. Armand squirmed first two times, I don’t know what he expected – the level of homophobia there is within national average: people blink, smoothly recover and hasten to leave you to discuss it between themselves during dinner. Nutcases exist, but their concentration and frequency in regards to regular people are comparable to those in big cities. In short, my walking around with a dude didn’t cause riots.

Home, on the other hand, was a different matter. When we got there, Dad had just returned from office and we found them whispering in the kitchen. Mom shot a look at Armand and almost rolled her eyes but not quite, while Dad saw him hulking behind me in the doorway and took a moment to assess the size of the problem.

“Armand Hammer,” I introduced them.

They shook hands, a couple seconds longer than strictly necessary in my opinion, and Dad nodded to the back porch. “A word.”

“Oh, come on,” I scoffed, noticing my mother’s glee, “what do you think will happen?”

“Help me set the table,” she shoved a stack of plates into my arms instead of replying.

The light was on, and it was late already so I couldn’t very well see what was going on outside, only their dark silhouettes and flying orange dots of two lit cigarettes. Can’t say I was beside myself with worry, though – Armand wasn’t a child, he could handle himself, and he knew this conversation would happen sooner or later: if he didn’t have the guts to look my dad in the eye, he shouldn’t have gotten involved with me in the first place.

By the time they returned, reeking of Dad’s Marlboros and mysteriously silent, the table in the living room was ready. If my mom was in a foul mood, you wouldn’t have known it from the feast she made for us: french potatoes, pigs in a blanket, corn salad, roasted Brussels sprouts, buttermilk biscuits, raspberry jam pie for dessert that I’d spotted earlier in the kitchen and, of course, turkey that she usually carved herself and then fried in peanut oil with garlic and cayenne pepper. Try as you might, it was difficult to stay pissed when everything looked and smelled so good.

My dad glanced at Armand, deftly rolling up the sleeves of his black dress shirt, swore under his breath and went to change into something spiffier than an old sweater, reappearing later in the suit jacket and tie that I remembered from my college graduation. I noticed my mom looking at the table and frowning; she pursed her lips, seeming conflicted, then turned and went into the kitchen, bringing back Armand’s orchids that she put in the center of the table. “Thank you” I mouthed, and she just shrugged – whatever it is, we’ll fight about it tomorrow, Thanksgiving comes once a year, why spoil it?

“How did it go?” I whispered to Armand, meaning his tête-à-tête with my dad.

“Well,” he thought for a moment, “he simply wanted me to know that you had a father and if anything happened to you – regardless of severity – they’d find me floating in a ditch face down. That was it, more or less.”

“Wow,” I was impressed, “really?”

“Yes,” he snorted. “Also, I could pay off your college debt, if I really wanted to.”

“And what did you say?”

He shook his head. “I said I had trouble paying for my own kid. Thank you very much.”

I smiled. “You know he was joking, right?”

“Not about the ditch, he wasn’t.”

From that point on I was all mush. Mom lit a couple of candles and if I could, I’d have started purring – like, everything was good in my world, you know? Even the awkward silences that happened periodically, like when my mom would ask about Caro or my dad wanted to know what it was like for Armand in the Coast Guard, given his, well, preferences, even those couldn’t spoil my mood.

It was embarrassing - they tried to remember who shot that guy in Dallas and I felt stupid as hell when I blurted “Lee Harvey Oswald, duh,” but it turned out they meant a TV show they all watched as teenagers. It was fun - my mom confessed she still had the famous leotards that Jane Fonda unleashed on the populace, my dad admitted that he knew the chords to Y_ou’ve Lost That __Lovin' Feelin__'__, _and Armand swore he’d figured out the twist in _Return of the Jedi _before it came out because he’d read Campbell. It was poignant – they were “Reagan Democrats,” meaning they all loved Carter, just not enough to vote for him twice, and then a decade later did the same to Bush I, abandoning him for a guy who ran as a centrist but ended up turning their party so far right, it became virtually indistinguishable from Republicans, leaving the betrayers feeling betrayed.

It was nostalgic - they all remembered Diana getting married, Reagan getting elected and the Pope getting shot. It was uncomfortable - they talked about their weddings, their vacations, their kids.

I learned that I was once dropped in infancy by my father and that Armand had a small scar on his elbow – evidence provided - after baby Caro tripped hers. And my mom, of course, didn’t miss the opportunity to tell the story that the whole damn town knew, how she once overheard me offering to the Tooth Fairy _her _teeth in exchange for a toy rocket, and for a lightsaber, I was ready to part with my dad’s too. What about Caro? Well, Caro wrote to Santa that she wanted a flying carpet and a smaller dad, she was fine with this one, personality-wise, but he never fit in her blanket houses and that was annoying; her mom fit, so she could stay, but dad, dad needed to be replaced, “and soon, please.”

Were we drunk?

Well, tipsy, I’d say.

“Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women!” my dad offered a toast.

Ok, scratch that. Yes, we were deep into the second bottle of wine and it showed. I put my head on Armand’s shoulder and mentally checked out because they stumbled upon the topic of retirement and wouldn’t let it go. He brushed my chin with his fingers - casual familiar touch meaning to convey _I know you’re here, it’s fine, stay _\- without turning his head or pausing in what he was saying, and I caught his thumb with my teeth and held it for a split second, making his lips tremble in a shadow of a smile you would’ve never noticed if you didn’t know his face well. He smelled of his usual cologne, combination of grapes and snow; I breathed deeper – he smelled of home.

Across the table my mom blinked… startled. At first I didn’t understand. I looked down and saw that Armand’s hand had landed on my leg, palm sprawled, fingers hugging my inner thigh, too close to my crotch to pass for a friend. It hadn’t registered with either of us, and there was nothing possessive or lascivious about the gesture, really – he did it without thinking, same as he would’ve had I plopped down next to him while he was reading and he tried to acknowledge my presence without getting distracted.

I glanced at my mom again. On some level she hadn’t believed it until then, I realized – neither my words, nor even Armand coming here with his ridiculous orchids were able to convince her that we were a reality. And this simple interaction, spontaneous and revealing, suddenly showed her a glimpse of the life she’d never seen, the life where this fifty-year-old man and her son were a couple, were lovers.

I shrugged, biting my lip, and she lowered her eyes, her cheekbones darkening with a hint of a blush. _There won’t be any girls after that_, I remembered saying and hoped she heard it this time.

She glanced away, and I saw a soft smile appear on her lips. “Snow,” she whispered.

It was. We all turned to the window and watched tiny white stars floating through the beam of light coming from the light pole in the yard. Within half an hour, the ground outside was covered with a thin shiny blanket, fragile and cold like Michigan itself. It wouldn’t survive the night but in its brief flight it sparkled. I found Armand’s hand under the table, wondering if he was thinking the same thing – it doesn’t matter how long it lasts, as long as it sparkles.

That was what I wanted my parents to see, that this love was like any other love, just a desperate attempt to fight the ultimate darkness, no more and no less, but I don’t know if they did. I wouldn’t be surprised if they humored my whim and welcomed Armand to our home only because I was their only child and they were afraid of losing me over something they thought could be as fleeting and inconsequential as first snow.

“Tell me you love me,” I whispered in the dark and felt another kiss on the back of my neck. Soft winter silence permeated the house, he moved to find a cozier position and had to abandon hope again – my student bed, as wide as a canoe, meant he couldn’t bend his knees further than I did, and mine were already pressed into the wall, so no matter how much he pushed, the buck stopped there, leaving his ass hanging over the side.

What followed was inevitable, honestly. We were slightly drunk, the bed was narrow… Pressed together like that, ass to crotch, I don’t know who’d have the patience to wait until morning or better yet until New York, but we certainly didn’t.

He muttered something, maybe that he loved me, I don’t know. I myself would’ve said just about anything in his place to get where I was going. No one could blame us. Well, my parents could, but it’s easy for them to judge - they weren’t there. They were across the hall, actually, about ten feet away – too close for comfort and too far to do anything - peacefully sleeping in their own bed, convinced we were doing the same.

Now, I won’t pretend that it happened before I knew what was going on. It’s not like, one moment I was lying there, reminiscing about the pie, and the next my briefs were around my ankles and Armand’s fingers up my ass. No, it started… well, it started with an erection, all such scenarios do, then my knees hit the wall, and his hands began to wander, and by the time one of them slipped inside my underwear I was so hot and bothered myself, it was pretty obvious no one could stop this train now.

A couple words about the bed. Nothing of the sort had ever happened on it up until that night. Would’ve been remarkable if it did in a town like mine. Here, I barely had time to unzip my pants when a phone would ring at my mom’s work: “Hey, you know that your kid brought a girl home? They entered ten minutes ago and haven’t come out since…”

Masturbation helped - it always does – but after Mom burned my porn stash and before Steve Jobs came to the rescue, bringing PornHub into everyone’s pocket, all I had was _Charmed_, but it’s like life, this show – after three seasons, even Alyssa Milano can’t do the trick.

Meanwhile, my dad caught wind of it all and, knowing that burning explicit material had never stopped anyone before, decided to come by and have his version of The Talk with me. Thankfully, not much was said – I was sitting at my desk, struggling to express what I thought about_ The Red Badge of Courage_, if anything, and he popped into my room, observed the mess, observed me, then dropped a box of condoms right on top of my paper.

“How’s school?”

I picked up my jaw from the floor relatively fast. “I’m… um, trying. Sir.”

“You do that,” he nodded, knocking on the desk absentmindedly. “Education is… well, you know, right?”

“R-right.”

He looked around, sighed. “Just don’t get creative, Tim,” he advised, glancing at the box, “they are single-use. Recycling leads to child support here.”

I gaped at him, he nodded again, patted my shoulder and left. That was it. I got a C for that paper, I remember.

So, no, my bed had never seen anything like what was going on there on that Thanksgiving night. Fuck, we were on fire. Armand came with a pajama – the top was discarded right away, my t-shirt followed. I was jammed into the corner, told to be quiet, then had to be told again because he climbed on top of me and it was heaven, smothering, sweaty, hissing heaven. I felt his fingers glide over my lips and opened my mouth for him; he smiled and slid them inside, calling me his kitten and advising to be thorough. I was trying to - I knew where these fingers would go after that.

When his hand slipped into my briefs, I curled one leg around his waist and relaxed, watching his laughing eyes getting closer in the dark and seeing the expression in them suddenly change – confusion? panic? I didn’t have time to process it, when a sudden boom that I thought at the time was a gunshot sounded, and the fall began – vertiginous and lightning-fast, but brief.

Hell, flashed through my mind, we’re going to hell… It does exist and we’re going there.

We weren’t – unaccustomed to so much vigorous activity, the slat supports of the bed broke and the whole base collapsed, that was all. Of course, I didn’t know it then, so my nascent scream of horror was genuine, if short-lived, interrupted by two hundred pounds of pure Armand landing on top of me a split second later, two of his fingers still inside my ass.

Yes, I know, I know, worse things can happen to a person, though at the moment I couldn’t think of any. He’d barely had time to get off me, when the lights came on.

“It’s fine!” I heard my mother’s voice, squinted and saw her standing in the doorway in her nightgown.

My dad – waving boxers and a gun - arrived next, searching for intruders he thought we trying to break in and chose my room for some reason.

“They broke the bed,” Mom announced.

“Broke the bed?” he repeated incredulously.

I hustled back into my briefs under the blanket and sat up, trying to seem smart and unruffled but actually looking like I was taking a bath inside my bed. “Nothing serious,” I shrugged, “we’ll sleep in the living room.”

“But how did...?” Dad bent down to inspect the damage. “What were you _doing_?”

It wasn’t a gotcha or anything, he didn’t know and wanted to. I stared at him pointedly and didn’t let go until it started dawning on him too that having a boyfriend had erotic implications.

Armand kept to himself during the whole sorry mise-en-scène. I’d hear him quietly apologizing to my mother next morning, saying it was all his fault – as if she had any doubt - but then and there he was as useful as tits on a bull, standing to the side and hiding his crotch behind a pillow.

Needless to say, breakfast was tense. Dad cleared his throat several times, about to say something, and then didn’t, and Mom simply ignored the two of us. My back hurt and Armand was sleepy from a restless night on our lumpy couch. When it was finally over, I received a toolbox and was told to fix the bed, which I earnestly tried to do, while my Yale-educated boyfriend sat beside me on the floor, staring at the tools with the same wonder some chicks exhibit contemplating a car engine.

“You, my dear, need a husband,” I told him seriously, after asking for a screw and receiving a bolt.

He chuckled distractedly, fascinated by a linoleum knife. Yes, we’ll sparkle, I thought, however long it lasts, but we’ll certainly sparkle.

“Screw,” I showed to him. “And don’t get comfortable, we’ll finish here and I’ll drive you to our river to show you the otters. Live ones.

“Not much of a sight there this time of year – rot, dirt, water, fallen log - but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll propose to me on that log and I might even say yes, seeing as how I love you and all; so start thinking what you’ll say and give me the pliers. Red handles, chipped.”

  
  


<>

What now?

The mother of all questions. To be or not to be has already been answered, because they _are_, all those pages that you’ve written, that led you here, to this moment that’d promised a relief but doesn’t deliver.

Imagine Martin Luther, the ink is still fresh, the candle is shivering in the night – there’s so much blood already and even more is yet to come. He knows, he knew it all along. A glance at the fire, momentary powerful temptation to destroy the words that would tear the continent apart…

I’m not him, the comparison is quite absurd, and yet the hesitation and the question are here – what now?

I’ve started writing this in June of 2018, while covering the midterm elections – different cities, different hotels, same insomnia, same questions. Someone says, “Hey, dude, you could turn it into a book,” and you laugh, wave it off, pretend you think it’s nonsense, keep thinking about it. Then you hear it again, your vanity does too – doesn’t need hearing aids, that one – and you go, hm, maybe I do have something here, it might not be a great American novel, but what the hell? World needs to know what I have to say, it’s been holding its breath for 25 years, waiting for me to finally utter something mindblowing. I was in Atlanta: a little tired, a little drunk, open laptop, blinking cursor. Now, I decided, do it now or… or don’t, no one gives a damn either way.

This last came in Armand’s voice and so was easy to ignore. I stared at the screen, bracing myself for the outpour of sheer genius, and typed LOVE IN THE TIMES OF TRUMP.

Nothing happened. Well, I wanted to throw up, but I’m not sure if it was the title or the beer and Snickers I had for dinner that night. Anyway, I changed it. As I said, it was 2018 and by that time even the people who loved him were sick of the guy, so putting his name on the cover – and I was sure there’d be a cover – was a literary analog of shooting yourself in the foot.

The problem was, I didn’t have much more than a title then. I mean, I had my story, but suddenly I didn’t know how to tell it and so I put it on ice, convinced that later, when I had time and inspiration, I’d open it again and the words would come, easy as breathing.

Unsurprisingly, they didn’t, and during the rare moments of introspection, I sometimes admitted to myself that they probably never would. Then I met Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Ms. Cortez had quit her bartending job and was running around Bronx, knocking on doors and telling people, most of whom had likely never heard of Joe Crowley, that they shouldn’t vote for him and choose her instead. She was twenty-eight and starry-eyed, I was twenty-seven and jaded. She thought she could do it, I followed her around, jotted down some feel-good quotes and rolled my eyes discreetly. Everyone was expecting this blue wave that’d deliver the Congress to the Democrats, and I was looking back and thinking, yeah, whatever, much good that wave did for you in 2016.

“You should be with someone younger,” Armand would sigh, “too early for you to become a cynic.”

“Like you think she has a chance,” I snorted.

“I’m fifty-one.”

And apparently a worthless prophet, too, because the girl went on to defeat Crowley in the primaries and then Anthony Pappas in the general, to become the youngest congresswoman in history.

I… was impressed - reluctantly but genuinely – and what’s more, I was inspired, so I blame Ms. Cortez for going back to that empty document I still had on my laptop, containing no more than a hackneyed title and Pulitzer pretensions, and starting again.

The title was killed easily, but my bestseller ambitions clung to life for a couple of weeks. Three glasses of Chablis were usually enough to convince me that I was sitting on another _Scarlet Letter _here: sex – check, politics – check, a hint of controversy, a sprinkle of preaching… From the aspirations I had at the time, you’d think no one had ever fucked a 50-year-old guy or lived through an election year before me.

But delusions weren’t my only problem, there was also mercenarism, and writing for money is like fucking for food – full stomach but few orgasms along the way. I could churn out a piece on Trump, Gwyneth Paltrow, New York police or a local ferret-racing society without engaging my brain cells once – I was that good and that bad – but I had no idea how to do it without an agenda. It happens. You can write only so many paragraphs chiseled to a clickbait perfection before turning into a hack.

“One day,” I remembered Armand’s words, “you’ll change or you’ll stop.”

I had to talk about my feelings, and I’d lost the vocabulary. Feelings are tricky, especially in journalism. They were considered a big no-no in reporting, until Hunter Thompson came along and opened the Pandora’s box of emotional exhibitionism that we’ve been struggling to shut ever since – now, even the S&P fluctuation is accompanied with the detailed summary of how the guy analyzing it feels about it.

Following the advice of my former professor “Want to share? Call your mom,” I’d tried to avoid it as much as possible. And if I happened to forget this sage instruction, there was another, even more reliable authority in the person of Tony Soprano with his famous lament: “See, what they didn’t know was once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings that they wouldn’t be able to shut him up! And then it’s dysfunction this, and dysfunction that, and dysfunction vaffancul!”

But I wanted to be honest with and about myself, and from cave paintings to kittyblogs, pain is still the best ink on the market, unfortunately. I needed to go back and look again at the events that changed my life and took place at the time that has changed my country too.

And now it’s finished. Well, not the country, thankfully, but the manuscript. Rereading it is as strange, surprising, revealing and embarrassing as looking at a long-lost photo forgotten at the bottom of the drawer – was it me? So young, so self-assured, so stupid… Did I really think that? Did I really do that? Where did I get the courage to be so… myself?

But the biggest question, once again, is what to do with it now? Armand has no idea that this thing exists – he’d have a conniption if he did. I once posted his shirtless pic on Insta – ok, technically, it wasn’t shirtless, there was more, but it was hidden from view by the kitchen counter – and it was, like, _are you crazy? Half of my office are following this account. _

Frankly, I was more surprised that it was only half, given the chest he has, than that he wanted it to be taken down immediately. Why didn’t I have my own account, he’d often ask, why did I have to use his for everything? As if I’d post some preposterous shit under my own name. Come on!

Yeah, and now I have pages and pages of preposterous shit, with his dick and Caro’s boobs popping up here and there; and he has no idea, and I’m suddenly, like, if Lena Dunham could make a career out of her hysterics, why can’t I?

On the one hand, Liza would skin me alive, wouldn’t even hesitate. Years of living in the state with legalized weed have mellowed her a lot, but it’s still far from_ Timmy, my darling, darling boy. _

Caro would blow a gasket too. She’s been dating a concert promoter from Austin for the last two years, and it’s going great, as far as I know - they’ve even visited us for Christmas recently and she was like,_ you can kiss him, Dad, it’s fine;_ but I’ve watched _ Tootsie_ and I know how all this _ I wish a guy just told me the truth for once_ went down for Dustin, so I have no illusions here – we’re well past fucking, but she’d still scratch my eyes out, if she saw her boobs mentioned in print.

My mom wouldn’t be elated either. It took her three years to get used to the idea that Armand, old as he is, wasn’t going anywhere, and if she found out that he occasionally loves to tie me up and call me kitten, that’s all this progress down the drain in a heartbeat. Dad wouldn’t care much, though. Given that his friends would buy gay memoirs only for kindling, he’d probably never find out that this little book even existed.

Armand’s father would. Admittedly, he doesn’t seem to hold his son in high esteem as it is - hence the news of Armand’s gayness was met with a grunt and_ at least before, people had the brains to hide it _ \- but it’d still be _ think of your poor mother, she’d die again if she read it._ Sure, old Chris didn’t care much about her feelings while she was alive, but that’s how people are – look at John McCain: until Trump insulted him, he was a “jingoistic maniac,” now he’s a “war hero.” So, yes, Chris would mind, and vociferously.

That’s on the one hand. But on the other, they could all go hike – like I’m the first writer to embarrass his family! – all except Armand, that is. And Armand… Armand would explode into a thousand little Dalmatians before I could even finish saying, “Look, I wrote a memoir, of sorts…”

If he sent me back to the maid’s room for two weeks after, being bored one night, I’d changed the ringtone on his phone and then RiRi’s ear-splitting _I’m friends with the monster that’s under my bed _started blaring from his pocket during a meeting with his boss and Margaret Atwood, then publishing a tell-all, of sorts, would probably get me an outright eviction.

No, smart thing would be…

Fuck.

I mean, what if I_ am_ another Martin Luther, how would I know, if I never publish it? You start and you think, ah, it’s all bullshit anyway, but something happens down the road , and by the time you’re done, you look back - _ I’ll be damned, this is bloody extraordinary, all of it. _

Plus, I’m bored again. We’re self-isolating here currently, and there’s not much to do, except think about your inconvenient mortality, which I refuse, because I’ve been thinking about it a lot during my time with Armand and it doesn’t do you any good, honestly.

He’s alright, that’s true, and I would know – I study the results of his medical check-ups more carefully than I do White House press releases – but it doesn’t mean that the possibility of something happening to him is ever far from my mind. He’s not old, but he’s older, and even though he sometimes gets offended when I remind him about it, I don’t care. Like, what would you do if your fiftysomething boyfriend suggested you ran a marathon together? I looked up the distance and said, “Thanks but no thanks, and you, first you run to your cardiologist and bring me something proving you won’t drop dead ten feet after the starting line.”

He went and crawled under the table, where Rudy, I suspect, told him the same thing, because he did go to his doctor after all, and that quack opined that it wasn’t such a bad idea for a human to run 26 miles across five boroughs.

“You know what’s going on?” I complained to my mom on the phone. “It’s our healthcare system, it’s fucking rigged, and not in our favor. Like, you do realize that he’s worth more to them with a heart attack, than healthy and breathing on his own?”

The trouble was, my mom, too, would like Armand better with a heart attack, I suspect, so I didn’t get much support from that quarter. She doesn’t hate him per se, but after years of fretting that I’d prematurely make a grandma out of her, she has suddenly become very concerned with the continuation of our illustrious line, and Armand’s child-producing capacity is admittedly low, so, while trying to be civil most of the time, she never misses a chance to throw some shade his way.

Meanwhile, Armand was fucking determined: he’d wanted to do it for a long time and now apparently was the time to cross it off his bucket list. The whole ordeal was grueling: I grabbed a couple of evians, a towel and Rudy and headed to the finish line, and because Rudy got really slow with age it took us roughly as much time to walk to the southwestern end of the Park as it did Armand to run there from Staten Island. All the while my dog kept throwing pissed off glances at me: “You know your paycheck won’t support both of us, why did you let him go? What are we going to do if he doesn’t make it?”

“I’m tracking him here,” I showed him the app on my phone. “If something happens, we’ll go straight to the hospital. And stop it with income-shaming, bud, I’m actually doing fine these days.”

Entirely true. I was and still am. After Richard got me in touch with the guy who told me that Jeremy Brooks’s mother-in-law from the first marriage was on the shadow board of directors in AsproTech, I briefly exploded on the scene of investigative reporting. Jeremy went to jail for eight months for insider trading, and I was offered a paid contributor gig from MSNBC and Fox, accepting both. Fox – because I knew my dad would change the channel if he saw my mug on the screen, so my reasons were noble.

It was a hot day. We stopped at the bench, I opened one of the evians, Rudy took a quick nap and we proceeded.

Armand finished in the middle, very much alive and awfully sweaty, and I had to kiss it because my man was euphoric and after a stinky smooch declared he’d do it again next year.

“Just remember, dear,” I said cautiously, “we’re not trying to win this thing.”

“It’s a hundred thousand for the first place.”

Only love can make you let go of this much money, trust me, and the loss shook me to my hair roots, but life is full of hard choices. However, I may have been too hasty, because Armand didn’t feel like dying at all, he felt like fucking – victory and testosterone go hand in hand - so we had another marathon in the bedroom, to celebrate, and, face down in the pillow, I kept hearing it: a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand, a hundred… oh, yeah, just like that… yeah… a hundr… Jesus!

And while I was fretting about his health, he himself couldn’t sleep easy thinking about his father – Armand is somewhat murky on his religious beliefs, but he certainly remembers God every May, when sailing season starts in Maine. And it’s every time: “Dad, please, stay put.”

To which comes a variation of, “To hell with you and your lily-livered generation! You mama’s boys, you… You stay where you are, keep diddling your boy. You don’t care about your father, don’t act like you suddenly care about your father. I called Guggenheim,” the venue changes with each performance, “I called them, they said… You know what they said? They had no idea who I am!..

“You know what Kennedy, Bush and Murdoch have in common? Their sons accomplished _something_! No one goes, ‘Who the fuck is that old guy calling, Bush or something?’ No one! And look at you… Ah, to hell with you!”

Compared to that, my dad’s occasionally voiced belief that homosexuality is a natural consequence of liberalism can be construed as a blessing almost.

Armand tolerates this because… what else can he do? And I follow his example for the same reason. From the start, we’ve been living surrounded by doomsday prophets who constantly predicted that we’d break up soon, and when we didn’t, they’d fault shoddy math, move the date and shrug, “What difference does it make? Today or in ten years, but it’ll blow up anyway.”

I personally don’t see any reason for us to go our separate ways, and Armand doesn’t either – we have a life together, simple, quiet, strange to some, but totally acceptable to us. He’s older and he’ll get old about twenty years before I will. One day the man I love may need my help with performing the most basic tasks, one day he may no longer recognize me and I may find myself walking him through the park as slowly as he now walks Rudy, talking to him quietly, explaining stuff he used to know very well - I’m that boy you used to twirl around the living room to the beat of conga drums, the one you used to make love to in front of the fireplace. I’ve changed your life and you’ve changed mine, you remember?

He’ll smirk, looking at me – streaks of gray hair and wrinkled hands - what boy?

He’ll be right, I’ll be around sixty by then.

This all may happen, but now that I’m thinking about it, maybe that day will be the right time to show him these notes, to tell him, read it, this is us, this is how it all started. This is me, not yet thirty, hunched over my laptop, typing furiously, recasting into words some once-in-a-lifetime moments in a desperate attempt to freeze time. I wrote it for you. When it was finished, I realized that I’d written it for you, not for money, not for applause, but for the man I love, the man I’ve loved all my life.

And what a life it was! No? Do you remember seeing me for the first time in that cafe, your daughter’s boyfriend? If only I met you first and not her, so many things could’ve been easier, a lot of pain could’ve been avoided. But I didn’t, and it took us all a lot of time to make peace with the things that can’t be changed.

Like the election that happened that same year and reflected the country few were willing to recognize. We blamed culture wars, economics, foreign interference, misogyny, but when the dust settled and the data started pouring in, what we found was something more insidious than the blizzard of fake news on Facebook. The only factor common to all potential and eventual Trump voters wasn’t age, gender, race, income, marital status or education level, it was… depression.

The more depressed you felt in 2016, the more likely you were to vote for Trump. Men like him don’t win in shiny cities upon hills, they win in Prozac Nations.

Depression is an absence. Of hope, of ambition, of pain, of love. It’s when you start asking yourself “what type of dish set better defines me as a person,” that you’re ready to summon Tyler Durden, because feeling pain is infinitely preferable to feeling nothing. No Mueller commission could help when one in eight adults and adolescents in the country were on antidepressants and had been for the last ten years, with the number rising to one in five when it came to white women.

We’re exhausted – some by poverty, others by excess. We’ve been fighting this malaise for so long, we’ve run out of clever terms to describe it - it’s “shit-life syndrome” and “affluenza” now. We’re numb, begging for a syringe full of adrenaline straight into our cold, little heart, which Trump was supposed to deliver but offered only more bread and circuses instead.

I pause, look around – this is not about Trump, it’s never been. It’s about you and me, and Rudy, and maybe our children. Do we have them? I don’t know it yet. Being where and when I am, I cannot know. You’re thinking about it, though, you’ve been thinking about it for close to two years now. Some of your friends, even older than you, have become parents recently, and so you’re wondering, maybe it’s still possible for you too. That conversation we had, about selling this apartment and eventually the house in Maine, when it’s empty, and buying something for Caro in Austin, if she still wanted to stay there, and maybe moving to the suburbs ourselves, I know you were thinking about children then.

Don’t worry, we still have time. You’re only fifty-three.

It’s so strange, like sending a message in a bottle to yourself across the ocean of years. I’m typing this, Rudy by my side… Yes, he’s still alive, on this page he forever will be. Say hi, Rudolph, dip your paw into cybereternity. We’re playing with time, all the aces in our sleeves for a second. A dozen pages back, I’m still leading you through the Park, pleading you to make another step towards your new home. A dozen pages back, I’m still twenty-five.

I hope we got married after all…

Don’t mean you, Rudy. Keep dozing.

Ok, right, I hope we did. Because what is it with you, Hammers? One can get engaged to you in a heartbeat, but when it comes to actually marrying anyone in this family – start counting in decades, pal. Anyway, the yes I said on that log is still in force, so I hope you wised up and cashed it in one day.

I also hope that we went to Lisbon. Last time we were going to, Lupe invited us for a visit to her village, so we flew to Campeche instead. But Lisbon is important, you see, because in those first days of falling in love with you, I kept picturing us walking those streets and you reciting Pessoa to me; and for the last year I’ve been learning Portuguese on the sly, hoping to impress you, so it would be great if we finally made it there.

I hope a gay guy became president, and no one cared that he was gay. I hope we as a society stopped associating intimacy between two men with violence and humiliation, and they stopped finding jokes about male rape funny and putting them even in cartoons. And when we went to play with our children in the park, I hope no one found it necessary to tell them that having two dads wasn’t what God wanted. I hope I didn’t have to delete this document because we broke up and it no longer made sense without y

  
  


Ha, that’s funny. Rudy has just heard your approaching steps and promptly vacated the bed, expecting your displeased sigh, then you poked in to say that the dinner was ready and glared at the can of Pringles that I’ve been munching on all this time.

Damn, you’re one sexy motherfucker, Armand. Even in old sweatpants. (If you’re reading this and frowning, glancing suspiciously at my sixty-year-old visage, trust me, I’m still thinking that and in those same terms. And if you’re worried, no, your sagging balls don’t bother me much, mine have been affected by gravity too by this point. We’re two old geezers, my man. We weren’t in 2016, not even in 2020, but we surely are now.)

You had no idea, when you looked at me, what I was writing, but my expression must have seemed peculiar to you – it’s because I felt time painlessly slice through me like a sheet of glass, separating the you standing in that doorway from the one holding this page now. I saw these two realities at once, the way physics promises it but only literature can currently deliver. I saw you and me, about to have dinner in the heart of the plague-stricken city and thirty years later, today. In between, what a life it was!.. I promise I won’t regret a second of it.

Look up now. If you’re reading this, it means I haven’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to learn and the freedom to make mistakes. Following WIPs can be frustrating and ultimately disappointing, but I hope you aren’t regretting your decision to read this story. Subpar or not, it meant a lot to me.
> 
> Be well.


End file.
